Heatwave is not all sunshine for those left to clean beaches

While beachgoers enjoyed the sun in Co Wicklow last weekend, Brittas Bay Beach Care were preparing for their weekly clean-up.

Volunteer Sinead Keane says huge numbers of people were still on the beach enjoying the sun when the cleaning began last Sunday evening. Rather than take their own litter away, many beach goers attempted to take advantage of the clean-up crew’s presence.

“A lot of volunteers had people call them over and ask them to take their litter,” according to Ms Keane.

The recent spell of warm temperatures across the country has seen more people visiting the beach. For the beach care crew, buses full of teenagers or tourists arriving to Brittas Bay inevitably mean a big clean-up the next day.

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“Every time we see a bus pulling up in the car park, I think collectively as a community, we kind of grimace,” said Ms Keane.

It is not just the rubbish being left behind that is ruining the beach for residents, it is also the behaviour of some of the people doing the littering. Young teenagers drinking on the beach can be “very abusive”, according to Ms Keane, which makes it very hard to talk to them about the litter they leave behind.

Watching the beach being destroyed by people supposedly there to enjoy it is frustrating for the volunteers from Brittas Bay Beach Care.

“It is very hard to watch it be treated the way it is, the lack of respect that it’s treated, it’s really really difficult” said Ms Keane.

Despite the littering, she does not think public bins on the beach are a good idea: “It’s an unnatural thing to have a waste disposal area in the middle of a beach.”

There is a fear that public bins on the beach will do more damage to the environment, concentrating waste in areas where wildlife and waves can get to it. Wicklow County Council is reluctant to put bins on the beach for this reason.

Bonfires and barbecues

Brittas Bay is not the only beach that has suffered from litter during the warm spell. Last weekend was the second weekend in a row that a huge clean-up had to be done on Bettystown Beach in Co Meath.

Beyond the rubbish, bonfires and barbecues pose fire risks with dry vegetation near the beach. It is understood that the fire service were forced to make a number of trips to the beach because of this.

In Dublin, the number of public bins around the city has been dropping since 2012, in an effort to deter members of the public from using them for their domestic waste.

However, according to Dublin City Council's Litter Management Plan 2016-2018, "abuse of a bin (eg using the bins for the disposal of household waste) will not necessarily be a reason for removal except under extreme circumstances".

Under the plan, bus stops, neighbourhood shops, main thoroughfares, schools, parks, hospitals are considered as priority areas for litter bins.

Despite this, the good weather has a serious impact on the level of littering, especially in areas like public parks or along the canal during good weather, as people take advantage of the sun to drink during the day.

A spokeswoman for Dublin City Council said there is not a lack of bins in the capital, and that any problems with litter are down to more people being outside recently.

She said: “We have addressed this through the provision of additional bins, increased cleaning of those places prone to littering incidents as required and have also installed bins with additional capacity at locations that have traditionally experienced high seasonal demand such as Sandymount Strand and at the Grand Canal.”

Fianna Fáil’s John Lahart last week called on Dublin City Council to introduce large temporary bins along the canal in the Portobello and Harold’s Cross areas to combat the litter left over by day-drinkers.

“Gardaí are working hard to patrol the city centre to deter any degree of anti-social behaviour but residents and businesses are left to deal with piles of rubbish left behind by those enjoying the sun,” he said.

That may work in reducing littering in the city. But for Ms Keane, more bins, temporary or not, will not fix the problem of littering, especially not at the beach. In the future, she said, we need to rethink our relationship with rubbish and the environment and learn to take responsibility.

“People need to change the mentality, if you can carry it onto the beach you should be able to carry it off,” she said.