COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

South Dublin County Council Crest

MEETING OF LUCAN / PALMERSTOWN / NORTH CLONDALKIN AREA COMMITTEE

Tuesday, January 23, 2024

QUESTION NO. 12

QUESTION: Councillor L. O'Toole

The committee enquires about the availability of children's litter pickers, gloves, and other child-friendly equipment as part of the community clean-up materials provided to residents. In recent community clean-up activities, I have noticed an increasing number of young children actively participating. I believe that incorporating child-friendly equipment would not only enhance their engagement but also contribute to fostering a sense of responsibility and community involvement from a young age. Could you please confirm if the council currently provides children's litter pickers and gloves as part of the community clean-up materials? If not, I would like to explore the possibility of including such items in the available resources to better accommodate the involvement of young residents in our community clean-up initiatives.

REPLY:

The Council ordered a small batch of Junior Litter Pickers in 2023 of which we have a number of these remaining.  We did try to source childrens gloves previously and were unable to source them at the time.  The demand has been low for Junior Litter Pickers and gloves over the last year.

Picker Pals is a litter-picking programme for primary school children in Ireland. It has been running since 2019 and we have had over 70,000 children across Ireland take part so far. Picker Pals equips and empowers these children, almost 3,500 of them from South Dublin County Council, to get out and start looking after their local environment by providing them with a litter-picking pack that everyone gets a chance to take home and go litter-picking with their family. Picker Pals provides a yearlong school-based programme of learning about litter, the impact it has on the environment and various child-friendly waste reduction ideas. This awareness and learning is created by using story books, workbooks, quizzes, games and competitions that run throughout the entire school year. Picker Pals also hosts regular zoom calls with classrooms (individual or group calls) where they talk about various environmental themes and chat to the children about the great work they are doing.

Last year under the Anti-Litter Anti-Graffiti Grant 2023, SDCC funded Picker Pals €4,200 to fund 6 classrooms in the SDCC area.