A policy of zero tolerance towards litter has been called for by Irish Business Against Litter (IBAL). Nothing else had worked, IBAL chairman Dr Tom Cavanagh said at the start of the Cork Chamber of Commerce litter campaign yesterday. He wants Cork Corporation to employ at least 50 litter wardens for several months, in an attempt to change the behaviour of litter louts.
School campaigns, advertising campaigns and empty threats of on-the-spot fines had never been effective, he said. The benefits of a change of policy could be enormous. Clean cities were more attractive to visitors and new business, and they wasted less ratepayers' money. Local authorities spend £25 million annually on cleaning up street litter. But they can keep the money they raise from on-the-spot fines to use as they see fit.
The new Litter Act would be useless, he warned, unless sufficient resources were put in place by the Government for its implementation.
IBAL has been in existence for 18 months. Founder members include AIB, Bank of Ireland, Ford, Irish Distillers, Murphy's Brewery, First National, Glen Dimplex, Golden Vale and Waterford Foods.
The organisation has promised a £1 million advance factory for Waterford if it can stay litter-free for 12 months. This scheme has been monitored by An Taisce for the last six months and Waterford is on course to get its factory.
Dr Cavanagh believes that once a factory was built in a litter-free zone there would be no problem finding an industrialist to develop it into a successful business.
"Large-scale funding needs to be made available for the provision of litter wardens throughout the country and particularly in areas such as Cork where residential and urban growth is clearly giving rise to an increasing litter pollution problem," he said.