Fees may deter householders from using recycling centres

LOCAL AUTHORITY charges for using recycling centres have the potential to undermine householders’ behavioural changes in relation to waste management, councillors claimed yesterday.

Speakers at the annual conference of the Association of Municipal Authorities in Buncrana said a number of local authorities had introduced such charges.

Responding to an address from Adele O’Connor of campaign group Irish Business Against Litter, Cllr Sean Conlon, a member of Monaghan town and county councils, said charges had been introduced there in August.

While the charge was just €2, he said he believed the “strength and success or recycling centres” was based on the centres being free. He predicted that years of good behaviour would be undermined because of the charges.

Mr Conlon challenged Ms O’Connor to “go back to John Gormley and “use the influence that I know you have” to ask the Minister to ban such charges.

Ms O’Connor said she would be interested in an assessment of the volumes going into recycling centres before the charges, compared to the volume going in after the charge was introduced.

Ms O’Connor said surveys conducted by the group over eight years showed that the litter problem was abating. She said in 2002 “very few towns reached top level”, but by this year some 65 per cent “fell into that category”. It was, she said, illustrative of a situation where towns once clean, did not want to be classed “littered” again. She said the “bad” towns always made headlines, but the overall trend was very good.

Cllr Willie Nolan of Ballina town council asked if the business group could “name and shame” those responsible for litter blackspots, while George Lawlor of Wexford borough council said the local authority spent €520,000 a year on street cleaning but there was a perception among business people that litter was a council responsibility.