The latest survey by business group Irish Business Against Litter has revealed that Ballina is performing well when it comes to keeping its streets clean.
The town was deemed to be ‘clean to European norms’ in the latest results from the litter league survey of Irish towns and cities.
The town is in 27th position in the ranking of the 40 areas surveyed.
Kilkelly and Cavan are Ireland’s most pristine towns and were deemed cleaner than the European average.
A spokesperson for An Taisce, which carries out the litter survey on behalf of the IBAL, said Ballina was performing steadily in the litter league each year, although he did point to a couple of areas which could be improved.
“Tom Clarke Park, the Urban Council Car Park at Market Square and Humbert Memorial were all in very good order,” reported An Taisce.
“SuperValu Shopping Centre was much improved on previous IBAL surveys. Both the recycle facilities were moderately littered - at Market Square and at Dunnes Stores. By far the most heavily littered site surveyed in Ballina was the Attymus/Church Road approach.”
For the first time, IBAL inspected the cleanliness of connecting routes between towns, which were found to be typically more littered than the towns themselves.
However, the Ballina to Sligo road gave a good showing with only sporadic litter visible along the route.
The survey found that, nationally, sweet papers are by far the most common form of litter, followed by cigarette butts, fast food wrappers, and chewing gum.
Most recycling areas were littered, with car parks and residential areas also more likely to be littered than other sites.
