Community rises up to declare war on litter

Volunteers armed with gloves, bags and litter pickers are taking to the rural roads of Bohermeen in a major clean-up of their community

They put on their yellow bibs like coats of armour and joined in the fight against litter, brothers and sisters in arms, facing up to a common foe.

They were members of local communities who walked around the roads of their respective parishes recently picking up all kinds of litter as part of Meath County Council's Green Kilometre Scheme - an initiative aimed at encouraging people to get out and clean up their local communities.

Among those to respond to the call-to-arms was a group of people in Bohermeen who gave up hours of their time on the second last Saturday in February, to do their bit in the war against litter.

One of the driving forces behind the clean-up was Joe Leahy, the proprietor of Newgate Mace Stores, just outside Navan on the Kells road. He was greatly impressed with the turnout with about 40 people taking part - and while he wasn't totally shocked by the amount of litter gathered he was left shaking his head at the level of waste in this country.

Some weeks previously Leahy had organised a clean up in Beauparc where he lives and that proved to be very successful so he thought he would seek to do the same around Newgate.

"We gathered over 200 bags (in the Bohermeen area). I supposed from been involved in picking up litter around Beauparc I wasn't overly shocked but it's simply astonishing the amount of stuff that is thrown out," he said.

"We found a bag full of needles, some of them used, some of them not, we found parts of cars, it's amazing what you will find, in Beauparc we found the curtain of a lorry we had to cut up before we could dispose of it, we found a hedge trimmer."

On the designated day the little army of yellow-clad collectors went about the task of cleaning up an area that extended much further than was originally envisaged, with Covid-19 restrictions carefully observed.

"I thought we could do a clean-up from my shop in Newgate to Kevin McHugh's Pub in Greetiagh. It's a straight road more or less, and it's about 5.3 kilometres. I felt that was very doable. Other people such as Audrey Gaffney, Tom Dolphin, Tony Casserly became involved. It became a much bigger project so instead of just going from my shop to McHughs we ended up doing 21 kilometres in the surrounding area.

"We had started a WhatsApp group and we have 55 people on that - and we had about 40 people out on the Saturday of the clean up," he added. "In that 21 kilometre area we there were 200 bags of stuff collected so it's not just a few people who are fly-tipping or throwing stuff out of their cars, it is a lot of people and we really need a totally new re-education programme with regards to that. Every few yards there's a plastic bottle or a can, they make up about 75 per cent of the litter out there."

One of the ways he feels litter can be reduced is by charging a levy on plastic bottles and cans. That's a view shared by Carmel Duffy from Walterstown who was the chief driving force behind a clean up of her area recently that collected a large amount of discarded waste. She pointed out how in Australia, where her daughter lives, such a levy has proved very effective.

To illustrate the kind of challenges faced Joe Leahy tells the story of how, close to his home, littering takes place everyday in almost the same spot. "We have a stretch of road in Beauparc where there is someone throwing out a Red Bull can every day. We pick it up, it re-appears. It is been brought in a shop, the person drinks it in the car and by the time they get to this stretch of road they just throw it out the window, probably they are not even thinking about what they are doing. "

On the positive side Leahy points to the commitment of the local people in Bohermeen and Beauparc.

The plan now is to litter pick the whole parish. A map of the sprawling parish the green army has already covered (28km). The yellow lines are the area to be covered by the Cortown group (16km) and the blue the Boyerstown group (13km).

“Hopefully by next weekend we will have covered over 60 km of the parish. We’re aiming to complete all 90km in the coming weekends.

“What a brilliant achievement that would be and maybe something for other parishes to aspire to.”

.Joe has also praised the support provided by Meath County Council. "Bernadine Carry has been fantastic in the way she and her colleagues have provided litter pickers and bags and organising to have all the bags collected afterwards. The Council have pushed this Green Kilometre Scheme and it has proved to be very successful."

When contacted by the Meath Chronicle, Bernadine Carry said the Green Kilometre Scheme was part of response to an problem that has mushroomed during the pandemic. "There has been a significant increase in dumping and littering during the pandemic, up approximately 20 to 30 per cent in any given month in terms of reports we receive from the public. A lot of this is dumping of black bags in quiet locations, household waste for the main part," she said.

"There are a lot of people out and about walking who want to get involved in improving the environment in their local area and the Green Kilometre (see Meath County Council's website for details) was created to support their efforts. There are 110 groups involved across the country, including the huge clean up that Joe organised in Bohermeen.

"The aim of the Green Kilometre Scheme is to assist any individual, family, community or sporting group who wishes to undertake a clean up in their area and we will follow through with the distribution of native saplings in the winter planting season."

The battle against litter continues.

UPDATE: Since the initial major clean-up and this article first appeared in the Chronicle last Tuesday, three additional litter picking groups have mobilsied in the Cortown, Boyerstown and Martry areas covering another 49kms of the wider Bohermeen parish that’s 79kms in total covered so far. it's hoped the final stretch of 20kms will be tackled and cleared next weekend. If you want to assist contact Joe at the shop (Newgate Mace).