Cigarette butts represented the greatest negative impact against Mitchelstown’s anti-litter challenge in the competition’s first round of results for 2017.
52 butt ends were recorded in the green area at the community playground and another 50 noted between AIB and Supervalu.
“Cigarette butts are undermining the efforts of all associated with improving the image of our town,” said Cllr Kay Dawson. “I would urge business owners and members of the public to adopt a sweep and gather approach as opposed to sweeping the offending material from the footpaths onto the road.”
The community playground had most cigarette butts (52) and most items of litter (20) after the first round of judging, but Cllr Dawson said it isn’t too late for Mitchelstown to recover and climb the league table, where the town currently sits third from bottom.
“With a bit more work we can definitely improve on the first round scoring. We have one person now dedicated to keeping the town clean but everybody can play their part. We all have a responsibility to keep our town clean and while pubs make provisions for people to dispose of their cigarette butts, we need to look at providing similar bins in the playground.”
Bandon are currently top of the category B2 league table, Mitchelstown are in 8th position and Kanturk prop up the rest in tenth place.
