Dublin City Council is considering a crackdown on "unsightly" bin bags.
Wheelie bins are generally mandatory in the capital but there are hundreds of streets that are exempt because they are considered impractical.
Plastic bin bags are used instead but now the City Council is considering expanding the use of bins in the remaining streets.
Speaking to Newstalk Breakfast, Green Party Councillor Donna Cooney said she was pleased the Council is considering the change.
“I’d like to see it happen because, as everyone knows, these bags, they look unsightly, they get torn open by foxes and seagulls and litter ends up strewn across our streets,” she said.
“It’s not working the way it is.
“There’s 900 of these streets, I’m glad they’re revisiting [the issue].
“There has been some… sort of a pop-up bin talked about, a harder bin that would be more durable.”
A gull scavenging from a bin bag.Cllr Cooney said the use of more durable bins would be welcome but suggested a more long-term solution would be to build bins where the waste is deposited underneath the street.
“They have them in other cities,” she said.
“I saw them decades ago in municipalities in Spain; they have these other bins - and they can be quite attractive - a stainless steel bin on the street surface.
“They’re not taking up too much space but underneath there’s a cavern where they have a large bin underneath it.
“So, it looks like an ordinary bin on the street but when you put it [the rubbish] in, it’s going into this cavern.”
Sea gulls
Any action that reduces the use of bin bags would be warmly welcomed by the South Georgian Core Residents’ Association who have campaigned strongly against their use.
Speaking to Moncrieff, Dr Kevin Byrne said they are “quite flimsy” and the result is seagulls can get into them and leave an “unsanitary” in their wake.
The group put together a calendar of local seagulls and bin bags to raise awareness about the issue.
Main image: Bin bags await collection in Dublin. Image: Peter Titmuss / Alamy Stock Photo
