Galway City Council is stepping up its campaign against gum litter and asking people to “Bin It Your Way”. This is the second year of the three-year campaign and Galway City Council is once again an active participant in the high-profile national Gum Litter Taskforce (GLT ) awareness campaign. The GLT ad-bikes were present in Galway City to promote the campaign messages.
Coordinated by the GLT in association with local authorities throughout Ireland, the national Gum Litter Taskforce awareness campaign aims to reduce the amount of gum litter in the most practical way possible by going to the root cause of the issue and encouraging the public to “Bin It Your Way”.
The campaign uses fun and energetic ways to promote the responsible disposal of gum litter. A survey conducted at the end of the first year of the campaign showed a 28 per cent reduction in gum litter nationally and a significant improvement in attitudes towards gum litter with 92 per cent of people surveyed viewing irresponsibly disposed of gum as litter.
“The campaign delivers a serious message in a lively and creative way about keeping our streets and footpaths clean of gum litter so I’m delighted to lend my support to this innovative and catchy campaign. The posters and TV ads have attracted lots of attention and we are already seeing a visible improvement on our streets which we are striving to maintain. It’s in all our interests to ‘Bin It Your Way’, said Anne Ruane, Galway City Council.
Paul Kelly, Chairman of the GLT, outlined new elements in the “Bin it Your Way” campaign.
“This year we have TV advertising and on pack messaging in addition to the schools education programme, point-of-sale material around the country and sponsorship of three awards in the TidyTowns competition. We have also developed a mobile phone gaming app which is now available to download free from the app store.
“This app is a fun way to promote the campaign message and encourage the public to dispose of gum responsibly” he stated.
“It is also a mark of how successful and well received the campaign was last year that we have an additional seven local authorities participating in this year’s campaign,” he added.
