30 bags of rubbish removed from banks of Dodder River
By Hayden Moore
BETWEEN Kiltipper on the Dodder and Crumlin on the Poddle, Dodder Action and Crumlin Community Clean-Up volunteers managed to fill more than 30 bags with rubbish retrieved from the banks and waters of the rivers.
Land and river-based volunteers tackled the banks leading down to the River Dodder from Kiltipper Road on Sunday, where they discovered a concentrated area that seemed to be historically used for fly tipping.
Dodder Action Group volunteers with the 30 bags of rubbish removed
Aside from the bags of litter that were filled with alcohol bottles, garden and household waste among others things, couches and wheel barrows were also discovered at the site.
Speaking to The Echo following the clean-up, local resident and Dodder Action volunteer Christine Barretto detailed some of the other findings on their clean-up.
“From the river a door frame, shopping trolley, hand saw, car parts, large knife and many other large pieces of metal were dragged up the bank,” she explained.
“The area was very wild and hard to access; however, areas of historical fly tipping were uncovered.”
The area of the Dodder that they cleansed, according to Christine, is rich in its bio-diversity, with sightings of foxes, badgers, otters, pine martens, bats and an assortment of bird a common occurrence.
“A motorbike had to be left in the river unfortunately as the equipment needed was not to hand to remove this,” continued Ms Baretto.
“Some of the volunteers also attended a local clean up in Crumlin on Saturday with Crumlin Community Clean-Up group, which also saw the removal of many large items from the River Poddle.
“All in all, 30 plus bags of rubbish were removed with many larger items not for bagging.
“This was a massive effort which yielded great results.”
For those interested in linking up with Dodder Action on one of their clean-ups, they post updates regularly on Facebook and Twitter about upcoming events.
