A new litter survey has found that PPE rubbish is more prevalent along the streets in the last 12 months.
That's down to the pandemic.
The number of 'clean' towns has dropped to its lowest level since 2007.
That's according to the latest Irish Business Against Litter survey.
Areas In Dublin And Limerick The Dirtiest
Kilkenny was listed as most clean town, followed by Athlone and Killarney.
However Dublin's North Inner City and the Galvone area of Limerick were both deemed to be seriously littered.
IBAL spokesperson Conor Horgan says cans, bottles and PPE were leading to a rise in the issue:
"We'd five times as many masks on the ground than gloves, unsurprisingly."
"If we're going to have this pandemic with us for years, we'd need to move to re-usable masks en masse!"
The prevalence in face-coverings is seen all over the country.
These people in Dublin say they've noticed it:
"The blue disposable ones are on every street you walk through," one person told us.
She said, "public parks and walkways too."
Another man agreed, "There definitely has been an increase of masks and PPE on the streets, definitely."
Obviously there is a lot of litter visible, I wasnt try to merge to words into one in this tweet 🤦♂️ pic.twitter.com/lCwXuNlPuf
— Ed O'Brien (@EdOBrien1) April 14, 2020
Advice And Guidance Needs To Be Better
Meanwhile Dr Liz Kingston from the University of Limerick says messaging around how to dispose of the masks needs to be better:
"It should be placed in a covered or a closed bin."
"Now in some cases, if it's difficult to find a litter bin, people need to bring it home."
"Then dispose of it at home."
In terms of clean towns, Portlaoise and Maynooth made up the rest of the top five.
However, Tipperary, Tallaght and North Cork were all described as 'littered'.
