A calendar of seagulls and bin bags will hopefully change how waste is collected in Dublin, a campaign group has said. 

For years, the South Georgian Core Residents’ Association (SGCRA) has campaigned against the use of bin bags for waste disposal.

The group say the bin bags are “quite flimsy” and the result is seagulls open them up and fling litter across the street.

“It looks dreadful, it’s unsanitary, someone then has to clean it up and we think it damages the city’s image and impacts tourism,” spokesperson Dr Kevin Byrne told Moncrieff. 

“So, we decided to highlight the problem in a lighthearted way with a seagull calendar.”

Wheelie bins are mandatory except in a handful of streets in the capital where they are considered impractical.

“It’s considered that we don’t have enough gardens or access onto the street to be able to use wheelie bins,” he said.

“Those are the streets inside the canal where we see the bag bins being used.”

In 2023, the group decided to create a calendar for 2024 they hope will serve to create awareness of the issue .

“We got our members over the last few months to take photos of seagulls getting up to trouble with bin bags,” Dr Byrne said.

“We voted on our favourites, so every month has got a seagull photo causing trouble with bin bags.

“Also, we’ve got a quote for each month and then, obviously, there’s a normal calendar feature that people can use.”

Seagull calendar. 23/01/2024. Picture by: South Georgian Core Residents’ Association

Alternatives for bin bags have been considered by Dublin City Council but as yet none is being rolled out.

“There was a trial in late ‘21 into early ‘22 of a hard outer shell container that the bin bags would then be put into,” Dr Byrne said.

“So, this is kind of a black plastic container that a couple of bin bags could go into.

“That was trialled on a few residential streets and a few commercial streets.

“It did deal with the issue of seagulls.”

A few commercial streets are still using them but the group has not yet had a “firm reason” from Dublin city council why they could not be used more widely.

“There was an issue about where you put the containers after the use,” he said.

“But we still think that there’d be a huge improvement; the consensus was they did deal with the seagull issue and so we’ve asked about residential rollout and there’s no plans to do so.

“The calendar’s just a light-hearted way of raising the profile of the problem and see if we can get towards an actual functional solution.”

Main image: Seagull calendar.