It was a misty day in the area known as The Featherbeds in the Dublin Mountains as Michael Kirwan drove the Protecting Uplands and Rural Environments (Pure) Project lorry through Piperstown in south Dublin.
Passing sporadic bags of rubbish along the narrow road, he pressed on towards Military Road.
Just before the junction with Military Road, a north-south spine across the uplands, he stopped.
Here was what he had come for – several tonnes of rubbish randomly dumped on a grassy area at the side of the road.
On a summer’s day people might picnic here, looking down at the Glenasmole Valley and the Bohernabreena Reservoir.
It is a pristine landscape, a special area of conservation displaying heather beds and stunning views of a landscape carved by glaciers in the last ice age.
Last Friday, however, a light drizzle fell, wetting the pile of black sacks, waste electrical items and broken furniture. At least the damp may have prevented the pile being set alight.
Further down the road, the tarmac is marked by the heat from burnt cars. Torching cars – often setting them to roll unmanned down the hillside – seems to be a weekend activity here.
So too is setting fire to piles of rubbish – a feature which encourages the Pure Project to remove dumped waste as soon as it is reported.
And it is reported.
Hand-to-mouth existence
For all the abuse of the area “it is still a landscape in which people live”, says Ian Davis, director of the Pure Project.
“It is commonage, sheep roam here, people have houses further down the valley, people farm the land, horses roam.”
The Pure Project is known for sponsoring the Pure Mile, a scheme in which local communities all across the mountain are encouraged to adopt a mile of roadway. Their efforts speak of a pride in local heritage.
In Glenasmole, as in other villages and hamlets stretching across Wicklow to the Carlow, border briars have been cut away from old stone bridges, hand-carved wooden signs tell the names of bridges, roads and individual homes.
In Cunard, a “dancing at the crossroads” festival created tremendous interest among the Irish diaspora, bringing the families of former locals – spread across the world – home for the event.
One recent clean-up in Kiltegan resulted in the removal of 12 tonnes of waste.
“There are literally hundreds of people involved now, many people are out clearing up, spotting fly-tipping and using our phone line,” says Davis.
He says the speed of their response is essential to credibility.
“We always say we will be out as soon as we can and that usually means that day or the next.”
But the Pure Project is a hand-to-mouth existence and replacing the lorry would require multi-annual budgeting.
“The success is in the amount of people we can call upon, ” he says.
The Pure lorry collected from more than 1, 000 sites in 2015 and removed over 235 tonnes of illegal dumping.
Successful prosecutions
All dumping incidents are recorded on a GPS/GIS database system and, from this, Pure has built up a baseline data on dumping patterns, dates, locations, the type of waste dumped and the amount of rubbish dumped at each site.
Most of it occurs in the Dublin Mountains – the area may be wilderness, but it is only 10 minutes from the urban metropolis.
Regardless of the scale of the problem and the relentless stream of fly-tippers, Davis does not believe the idea that the act of removing the rubbish encourages more dumpers to dump. “The opposite is true. Where rubbish is left, it accumulates. People think ‘this is a dumping place’ and it escalates”.
But he says removing the rubbish and having schemes such as the Pure Mile sends a strong signal that “this is a minded area, that it is not okay to dump here”.
Future plans include CCTV in vulnerable areas, viewing spots, parking areas, and the entrances to forest tracks.
The cameras will have night vision and be able to record a car registration to facilitate prosecution.
“We are not interested in courting couples. But we need to do this because the level of dumping is rising again, and we need to let people know this is a protected landscape.”
Prior to the removal of dumping, all incidents are investigated by the relevant local authority litter wardens and, last year, there were a number of successful prosecutions in the courts.
In some cases, offenders were fined more than €3,000 and they were also made pay costs, which were generally in excess of €2,000.
