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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk. With Aviva Insurance.
Dublin City Council is looking to expand its ban on bin bags, but over 300 residents in Stoney Batter attended a meeting this week pushing back against the move. Tackling waste and litter in busy areas has plagued many councils across Ireland, despite successful efforts being made against it in recent years.
To share their views on this, I'm joined by the CEO of the Temple Bar Company, Martin Hart. Good morning, Martin.
Good morning, Clare. How are you?
Very well.
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Chapter 2: Why are residents in Stoneybatter pushing back against the bin bag ban?
The Labour TD, Marie Sherlock, was on breakfast this morning. She was at that meeting listening to the concerns of residents who are just worried about the cost implications for them. There's, I suppose, as well, the infrastructure of the bins when you didn't have to think about them if you're using the bin bags. But it's been very successful in Temple Bar, hasn't it?
Yeah, look, I mean, I suppose you have to look at the data. Firstly, the Irish businesses against litter, their surveys, which they survey the city centre and they measure the level of cleanliness each year. And they show a measurable improvement in the cleanliness grades in the city centre since the bin bag restriction came in place.
So the bin bag restriction came in place in Temple Bar last year. Before that, it was a mess. And going back 10 or 15 or 20 years, it was a huge mess. Look, So that's, I suppose, that's not a theory, it's a fact. So bans remove litter from streets. I suppose you have to look at the structural thing. Bin bags are structurally unfit to have waste in.
They burst, they leak, they attract rats and seagulls, they tear them apart. And the result is litter spread across the street. And look, that's not just a Dublin problem.
Chapter 3: What successful strategies have been implemented in Temple Bar to manage waste?
If you look in Edinburgh, they've been battling this for years between foxes and dogs. And actually in Paris before the Olympics, this was one of the biggest things they had to deal with before the 2024 Olympics. And it was the actual scale of these huge amounts of bin bags put out in the street. And they invested in underground and semi-underground containers and so on.
So look, they're not suitable. We have to change. Everything changes. Cities change. Life in cities changes. Uh, you know, you can't on one hand be constantly bemoaning the city and its cleanliness. particularly every summer. I mean, it's the thing that we, you know, the tune starts around May or June each year and runs for a couple of months.
And without doing this, it's hugely, hugely important.
The rubbish problem, though, isn't solved in the city centre. I was coming in this morning and I passed two cases of bins that had been upturned. And I'd say there were 30 seagulls at each place having an absolute field day. It was a big mess. So the bins will solve it to a certain extent, but not fully.
Chapter 4: How do bin bags contribute to litter and waste management issues?
No, but I think a seagull is going to have less luck with a bin than it is with a piece of thin plastic. So, you know, I'm sure bins blow over, they fall down, things happen. I get that. But I think overall, if you're trying to manage a city and you're trying to keep it clean, you have to get rid of these bags. They have to go.
And as I say, you know, Temple Bar over the last, since COVID, you know, there was a huge
people started putting bags back out on the street it was a massive problem we we spent a lot of time with the council in trying to deal with this and uh you know they created the ban the ban has vastly improved the city so look you can't make an ambulance without cracking eggs as they say and of course there are going to be issues for people but look i remember uh back in the 90s uh now maybe people can't remember that far back in dublin city when i started in temple bar
There were a hundred, and in the city centre in general, there were hundreds and hundreds of these big Euro bins. I don't know if you remember them. They're like the giant skips that you'd see in, you know, in American back lanes. And they covered the streets of the capital.
And when the council banned them and said, you know, you can't do that, you can no longer store your bins on street, there was uproar. Where are we going to do, what are we going to do with the bins? People moved on, things moved on. So I think people will move on and people will adopt. I think it's in the interests of the city.
Look, I understand that people are going to have concerns, but, you know.
Well, the concerns, Martin, are around the cost, as I understand it, because at the moment it's pay as you go for the bags, which is handy for people when they're budgeting. What they're being asked to do now is to pay a private company a fee, a flat rate, wheelie bin rate.
And what Marie Sherlock is saying, the message that she got from the people at that meeting that she hosted on Monday night is that people will welcome this if you put a system in place that they feel is fair to them rather than just transferring them over to this private charge, flat rate charge that they'll be paying every week.
But that's what everyone in Dublin and every other housing estate outside of the city centre have to do. I mean, that's what I do. I pay my West Collection Company a flat fee and all my neighbours do. And I'm sure people do across the county of Dublin and probably the rest of Ireland as well. So, I mean, I don't see that as a new thing.
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Chapter 5: What are the implications of transitioning from bin bags to wheelie bins?
So I don't think, I mean, you pay a flat fee. But as I say, that's what everyone else is dealing with all over the county. I don't think the city centre should be any different.
Would you expect, though, Martin, given that there were hundreds of people at that meeting on Monday night, that the Dublin City Council will struggle to bring this in beyond where it is at the moment because there is such resistance to it, that there will be pushback?
Yeah, look, I mean, there's going to be pushback. It's obviously becoming a political issue in that sense. I mean, but as I say, in other parts of Dublin, in other suburbs of Dublin at least, and I'm assuming other parts of the country, this is the norm. So should Dublin City be any different?
And let's bear in mind, most of the criticism that you see in the media and other places, most notably from the uh, American ambassador is, is on Dublin city and, and, and it's, uh, it's litter. So you, you can't have both things. You either want a well-managed and clean city, you know, and, and with that, there, there, there comes certain, I suppose, costs, um, and, uh, in dealing with that.
But I mean, I, I, But I hear the argument. I don't necessarily agree with it. I mean, everyone else has to do it. Why should Stoney Banner be different?
And just coming back to the cleanliness of the city centre, and I take what you say that, you know, things have improved an awful lot since the bin bag ban was introduced last year. But there are still problems there. And you hear people talking a lot about the search for bottles and cans resulting in a lot of the rubbish back on the street again. Do you see that as a problem?
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, look, it's, I suppose it's, it's a measure of success in many ways of the return scheme that you have people like we, we see a lot of scavengers around in the city and, and in other places and they're, they're not all what you might think, but yeah, it's, it's, it is, it is a big issue. People are going around, they're emptying bins for returning to get the money.
Now, some of that obviously is for some vulnerable people, but I've, I've seen people who, who aren't vulnerable do it. And I think kids and teenagers do it as well. It's a thing and it's maybe an unexpected outcome of what was introduced, but it does happen.
I wondered this morning when I saw the two upturned bins, they didn't look like they might have fallen over in the wind. They looked like they might have been deliberately overturned and whether that was at play. It's just the chaos that it creates with the seagulls, I mean, and the mess afterwards.
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