Outside of the city centre there is a serious lack of bins, according to Galway city councillor Michael Crowe who is calling for an extra 200 bins to be provided to meet the needs of the people and to fulful the local authorities committment to properly tackle litter.
At a special meeting of Galway City Council on Monday Cllr Crowe (FF ) proposed a motion which was carried calling on the council to provide a report on the implications and costings in doubling the number of bins around the city.
The issue was raised as councillors were presented with the Environment Department Quarterly Report which stated: “There are more than 200 litter bins provided city-wide. New larger capacity bins have been placed along the Promenade in Salthill and in the city centre. More larger capacity bins will be introduced to reduce the frequency of emptying.”
“We spend approximately €2 million yearly on street cleaning and yet the reality is that we have nowhere near enough bins on the streets of Galway. Presently the main concentration areas where bins are, is in the heart of the city centre and along the prom. That’s it. Outside of these two place you should get a prize for spotting a bin.
“It seems pointless to me that we wonder why certain areas are not clean and also why we are not scoring highter when various national litter surveys are carried out. And separately I, as chair of the transportation and infrastructure committee, am driving the agenda which concentrates on adopting walking and cycling strategies and yet the council will not provide any bins along present walkways and cycle ways. It cannot continue. If you walk from O’Brien’s Bridge out to Seapoint, or from Bohermore to Renmore, you will not find a single bin along these routes or indeed along many routes. It’s ridiculous,” said Cllr Crowe who is now calling on the council to double the amount of bins provided to 400 and for funding to be made available in the upcoming budget.
Supporting Cllr Crowe’s motion, Cllr Declan McDonnell (Ind ) noted that while there were plenty of bins in the city centre there are no bins in the side streets and called for the bins to be spread out more.
Director of Services, Ciaran Hayes told the councillors that while he agreed with many of the views expressed there was a lack of staffing and resources to service and maintain the bins. “It is easy to put a bin in place but it is a stretch of resources to service them. There are 200 bins in the city, we could double that, and still have need for manpower to empty and service them,” he said.
Cllr Crowe said that while the report is due to be brought before the July council meeting, he is currently in talks with the environment section about sourcing funding for these extra bins with the view that these extra bins could be in place by next spring at the latest.
