Discarded cans add to pollution of stream

A SEAN Walsh Park user said he was “disappointed” to see a large number of discarded drink cans in the Tallaght Stream in the park last week – and is calling for the introduction of a refundable deposit scheme.

Jim Callan, who lives in Old Bawn, visits the park several times a week and on Friday morning took a photo of a heron at the top of the stream, with cans littered on the stream bed below.

“I’ve never seen it as bad as that,” he told The Echo. “It’s as if someone just dumped a bag of cans, that were to be recycled, in the stream.”

The Echo contacted South Dublin County Council about the littered cans, and a spokesperson confirmed on Tuesday morning that they had since been removed.

“SDCC were made aware of the large quantity of cans/bottles that were dumped in the stream over the weekend,” said the spokesperson.

“A member of staff cleaned out most of the material yesterday morning.

“As he required waders to remove the remainder of the rubbish, the clean-up of the bottles and cans was finished [on Tuesday morning].”

Mr Callan added: “The council does a great job of maintaining the park – it’s some of the park users that are the problem.”

The affected section of the stream is on the Tallaght Stadium side of the park, and Mr Callan said the implementation of a glass and can recycling scheme may help to combat the issue.

“I don’t think anything will happen until people educate themselves,” he said. “But I think there has to be a refundable deposit on cans and glass bottles.”

Last year, Minister Eamon Ryan signed legislative regulations for a Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) in Ireland for plastic bottles and aluminium cans.

The scheme is expected to be operational in the third quarter of this year, and it will see customers pay a refundable deposit on items like aluminium drink cans and plastic bottles, which they will get back once they bring their used containers back to a designated return point.

According to estimates by Irish environmental organisation VOICE, in Ireland alone we generate about 3 billion single-use plastic bottles and over 582 million aluminium cans each year.

However, between 60 to 70 per cent of them are ever collected for recycling, while the remaining circa 30 per cent end up disposed in landfills/incinerators or littered in our natural environment.