The Irish Business Against Litter Organisation (IBAL) is to publish an anti-litter league table of towns around Ireland.
The group’s latest initiative the ‘All-Ireland Anti-Litter League’ will involve twenty-nine towns being assessed for litter and then ranked in a league-type table.
IBAL is a pressure group supported by private business which promotes the equating of environmental cleanliness with economic prosperity.
It includes a range of commercial bodies, including Waterford Foods, the Irish Hotels Federation, and major banks, oil companies, building societies, brewers and distillers.
Towns from 29 counties, including three in the North, will be guaged according to international standards with each town being awarded a litter rating of up to 100 points with 85 points deemed ‘litter-free status’.
Towns will be assesed for varying levels of rubbish including chewing gum, graffitti, fly-postings and weeds.
The founding chairman of IBAL, Mr Tom Cunningham, said the aim was to send a message to the country as a whole, through this pilot project, that "the success of two of our biggest revenue sources - food and tourism - hinge on a perception of hygiene and cleanliness."
Mr Cunningham said at the launch of the initiative in Croke Park that this was not a ‘name and shame campaign’ but more a novel means of "energising Local Authorities through a spirit of inter-community rivalry."
The IBAL chairman spoke of the importance of combatting litter in view of the changing tourist market. He said next year Ireland will look to Continental markets to compensate for the shortfall in US visitors and that "these tourists are typically litter conscious as we will discover to our cost if we don’t clean up our towns."
The initiative will run until September 2002, to coincide with the GAA finals. Results of the first monitoring are expected in January.