Most people who attend large-scale outdoor events in Ireland never give a thought to who might end up cleaning up after them.
The litter-pickers are like ghosts flitting around the periphery at such events. They are there before everybody else in the morning and are still there after everybody has left.
For Vasile Nastasa and his brother-in-law George Tanase, this is the one of the busiest times of the year. Fresh from the site of Electric Picnic, which wrapped up a fortnight ago, they can be found this week at the National Ploughing Championships.
Vasile has been working with Ryans Cleaning for 12 years. They are among between 19 and 20 Romanians who work for the company during the summer months. Ryans, based in Thurles, is family-owned and has had cleaning contracts at major events for the last 40 years.
RM Block
They arrive in the UK in May for the first of the summer festivals and leave at the end of September.
They travel around from festival to festival in Britain and Ireland in a camper van provided for them by Ryans.
The Ploughing Championships are likely to be their last event of the season. Then they will return to their families in Romania for the winter.
Of events like Electric Picnic, Vasile says they are always too busy to pay much attention to the music. They work 12 hours a day for the duration of the outdoor events.
Ryans’ chief executive Aisling Ryan said staff numbers swell from 120 full-time staff to more than 500 at any time during the summer.
The company has an impressive slate of clients. It includes indoor venues such as the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre and the 3Arena, sporting events Croke Park, Punchestown, Limerick, Leopardstown, Galway, The Curragh, Tipperary and Kilbeggan racecourses.
Its portfolio in the UK including British Summer Time in London’s Hyde Park, Latitude, Reading, Leeds and Creamfields Music Festivals.
Many of their part-time staff during the summertime are third level students who avail of the flexible hours involved. Most, though, come from eastern Europe for the summer.
Rain is forecast for the Ploughing Championships in Screggan, Co Offaly, and there will be no place to hide for their army of cleaners.
“We do everything at the Ploughing. We pick up all the litter, we empty the bin, we look after all the public toilets and all of the plastic toilets,” said Ms Ryan.
“It’s not the easiest of jobs. People do not appreciate the work that is done on these toilets. People don’t see how hard it is on staff to keep toilets clean especially in bad weather.
“They work so hard. They don’t expect people to praise them. They just want to come in and do their job. They know they are doing a good job and they just want to continue doing it.”
She will have 80 people working at the ploughing this week. It is a relatively straightforward job compared to the Electric Picnic. They had 300 staff working shifts for 24 hours during the period.
