An upsurge in home drinking and meal preparation, along with careless attitudes to recycling are being blamed for a massive overspill at a Tramore bottle bank.
Waterford Council, who have responsibility for the oversight of bring banks for glass waste along with contractor Glassco, have said that the bank itself was little more than half full.
Environment Director with local authority, Fergus Galvin, spoke to Maria McCann on Deise Today about the issue.
"I would imagine what happened is that a number of people went along and just left bottles, others came along and just assumed that the banks were full and just followed suit," he said. "The consequence is what we see in the photograph. There was capacity in the bins that was unused, it was down to the carelessness of a number of people that we ended up with a mess like that."
Mr. Galvin says that capacity sensors are to be installed at bottle banks, "so that when the bins are nearing capacity... it will ring or text the contractor."
In a statement to WLR, Glassco, the contactor in charge of Waterford bottle banks says measures are being taken to increase collections, in light of the staycation phenomenon.
The company says :
"We became been aware of the issue at the bring bank in Tesco Tramore when we carried out a collection at the site on Tuesday of this week (04th August). Glassco Recycling carried out a collection at the site on Tuesday last but we ran into an unexpected collection capacity issue and we then returned to the bring site on 06th August (yesterday) to collect the balance of any glass and cans that was left from the previous Tuesday.
We have taken measures to shorten the collection interval at this and other coastal sites nationwide. This has been done in light of the “staycation” phenomenon that we are seeing this year, where bring bank use at tourist destinations has grown considerably, even accounting for other aspects of the Covid crisis."
