As a little test, we googled ‘illegal dumping’ followed by every country in Ireland and unsurprisingly, every local newspaper from every county had a plethora of stories about illegal dumping.
In the same way that nobody likes paying taxes, they also don’t like paying for getting rid of waste. It’s no surprise that the most common search terms when it comes to waste are “getting rid of rubbish”, “getting rid of rubbish cheaply”, “dumps near me”, “cheap dumps near me”, and “how to dispose of waste cheaply”. Every one wants to get rid of their rubbish, but all too often they don’t want to pay for it and will often resort to the easy way out.
In Ireland today you will find a lot of “man with a van” type operations that will advertise to come and collect your rubbish, often for a fraction of what it would cost if you did it through a licensed operator or your nearest civic amenity site. There is a reason why these operations are so cheap – they take short cuts – usually in the form of illegal dumping.
These people will find secret places where they know there isn’t any CCTV and they will take your rubbish, and many others, and drive – often 50-100km to this spot to dump it. We have some great local authorities in Ireland and they will find this rubbish sooner or later. If you have anything with your address on or anything at all that identifies you – you will get a very hefty fine through your letter box. It’s happened a lot lately where the only way that the person can get a smaller fine is by telling the authorities who collected the rubbish in the first place.
Of course, this is illegal dumping on a large scale. It also happens all over the country on a smaller scale as well but don’t think that just because you’re only dumping one or two bags, that you’re not as bad as the people mentioned above. Too many people think it’s fine to dump a black sack of rubbish beside some recycling bins because your local authority will clean up after you. Don’t worry, that just makes them more enthusiastic about finding people like you.
If you want to dispose of rubbish, or get rid of your recycling, there are lost of legal options out there. If you only have a few bags of rubbish but don’t want to pay for a weekly bin collection, you should definitely try the BIGbin. It costs just €8 for two big black sacks of rubbish and just €2 for recycling. You may prefer to spend your money on a takeaway or a pint, but this way you’re in no danger of receiving a healthy fine.
And you’re contributing to keeping Ireland beautiful.
