COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, July 14, 2014

QUESTION NO.38

QUESTION: Councillor G. O'Connell

To ask the Chief Executive  for a report on the working of the Litter/Street cleaning service, per electoral area, and to include details of the roistering system, the amount of litter collected year to date and to explain how the system works from the point that a citizen reports dumping/littering to the point where it is removed?

REPLY:

The daily litter bin service is provided by 5 operatives servicing established routes across the County with the same route being serviced by each operative every day from Monday to Friday, each bin on each route is inspected each day and serviced when necessary. The structure of the service does not strictly reflect the electoral areas, rather it is sub-divided in such a way as to equally distribute the workload among the five operatives. Waste from the street litter bins is collected separately and weighed at a waste transfer station, with approximately 180 tonnes of waste having been collected from the bins in the first half of the year.

The daily street cleaning service is provided at present from Monday to Friday by 10 operatives in the town and village centres with 2 operatives cleaning in both Tallaght and Clondalkin, and one each in Rathfarnham, Templeogue, Lucan, Palmerstown, Rathcoole and one at Walkinstown Roundabout. Similar to the litter bin service the same route is cleaned by the same operative each day. The waste from the street cleaning service is not collected and weighed separately, the quantity is estimated at approx 150 tonnes per year across the 10 locations currently serviced.

Both the street cleaning and litter bin service are treated as priority services which means that when the regular operatives are not available for work those positions are first to be filled by the foreman in charge who assigns relief staff to the task. At present both services are provided from Monday to Friday however it is proposed to introduce a weekend service on Sunday mornings targeted at the town and village centres and this will commence on Sunday July 20th. The 2014 budget has provided substantial funding for the maintenance aspect of the villages programme and this will result in an increased input of resources in the villages being made throughout the remainder of the year.

The reporting of dumping and littering is done through the litter warden service with all such complaints logged on the Council’s customer care system. Any reports of dumping which are made are investigated by the litter warden who then refers the matter to the public realm for clean up.