People are being urged to pick up their litter when visiting Irish beaches this summer.
It comes as thousands took to Burrow Beach in Sutton, Co. Dublin yesterday to enjoy record temperatures.
In the aftermath, a trail of empty bottles, cans, boxes and barbecues littered the coastal area.
Workers collected ten tonnes of rubbish.
Photographer Padraig O'Reilly witnessed how much rubbish was left by people: "One of the council workers told me they had to clear 49 large sacks of bottles and cans before they could actually get past the entrance on to the beach – that’s before they got on to the beach; just at the entrance."
Everybody on the Burrow Beach,Sutton,Dublin yesterday should know this is what it looked like this morning.Council workers say they’ve never seen the likes of it.Every type of glass/plastic bottles,soiled nappies,barbecues etc etc… pic.twitter.com/zT3fmCqsv5
— Padraig O'Reilly Photographer (@padraig_reilly) July 19, 2022
Meanwhile a Dublin councillor says setting up more bins won't solve the problem.
Council workers say they'd never seen as much rubbish left at the popular coastal spot.
Green Party Councillor David Healy spoke to members of Fingal County Council who cleaned up the mess: "They normally start around 6am and aim to finish by 9am. They started early, at about 5:30am, and didn’t finish until about 12:30pm.
"The problem is very large numbers of people coming and being willing to carry packaging and so on down to the beach with them and not wanting to carry it away with them.
"That is not everybody, a lot of people are responsible, but there are sufficient numbers of people who think they can just either drop it on the beach or drop it beside an overflowing bin."
Fingal County Council says: "Additional staff resources have been deployed at all beaches to remove discarded litter due to the substantial increase in public use of beaches over the last number of days.
"This is alongside the deployment of additional large bins for the public to use for their litter and additional toilets have also been provided at beaches. It is important that beach users to play their part by bringing their rubbish home or using the bins provided."
Our crew finishing clean up at Burrow Beach earlier.
Additional staff resources have been deployed at all beaches to remove discarded litter due to the substantial increase in public use of beaches over the last number of days. pic.twitter.com/6qe5qYhPhT— Fingal County Council (@Fingalcoco) July 19, 2022
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