Council collects over 230 tonnes of bonfire material
By Brendan Grehan
OVER 230 tonnes of bonfire material were collected by South Dublin County Council in the 10 days up to Halloween.
At last week’s Tallaght Area Committee of the council, Councillor Charlie O’Connor had a motion calling for the CEO of the council to present a full report of the actions carried out by the council during bonfire season, the amount of material collected, the costs involved, the costs of restoring open spaces and if the council plan to take action against local businesses who provided material for bonfires.
Remains of bonfire rubbish in Jobstown last month
In their reply the council said they collected 237 tonnes of material for bonfires from October 21 to October 31.
They added: “Removal of material from bonfire sites is not yet complete, therefore a final tonnage figure for collection of burnt waste post Halloween is not available as yet and therefore the final cost of clean-up is not yet available.”
In relation to the cost of restoring open spaces, the council said the figure was not available.
They said it is expected that the total number of bonfires in 2019 “will match the 280 bonfires in 2018”.
The Environmental Licensing and Enforcement Section of the council made contact with businesses before Halloween advising them of their responsibilities under waste legislation “urging these businesses to ensure that waste materials were not available for bonfires”.
They said a high level of compliance was achieved in this regard and “no enforcement action is proposed at this time”.
