Litter thrown out of cars could end up with Dunmanus swans

A WEST Cork resident recently photographed 220 items of litter he spotted while out walking on a 1km stretch of road. 

Hugh Rance photographed the items between Shantullig North and Dunbeacon and has reported the matter to the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) using their See It Say It smartphone app.

‘This stretch of road is equi-distant between Durrus and Ballydehob-Schull where drivers purchase soft drinks, tea, coffee, sweets, snacks and, having consumed them, throw the plastic bottles, sweet wrappers, coffee cups and other food packaging out of their van and car windows at this point,’ claimed Hugh. ‘Disposable coffee cups are the first items blown into the stream alongside the road and they all eventually end up in the sea at Dunmanus Bay, one kilometre downstream.’ 

He also reported the fly-tipping of household items including a TV and sink, plastics and tyres/car axle, springs and other parts in the bed of the river running alongside the road opposite Dunbeacon Church, which is partially blocking a storm water overflow gulley under the road, running down from the Mount Corin side.

Hugh used to be the litter collector for the parish council when he lived in Berkshire in England before moving to West Cork in 1994 and his father was an anti-litter activist in the 1950s. 

‘I also have a love of nature and our natural environment, so seeing such appalling disregard by people who throw their litter out of car windows really upsets me,’ he said. 

Time is of the essence, he added. 

‘If the Council do not attend to this within the next couple of weeks, much of the litter will have become covered by the grass verges or dispersed into the river leading to Dunmanus Bay, where a family of swans nest,’ he added. 

He has also proposed that signs are placed at appropriate intervals on this stretch of road coming from Durrus and also from the opposite direction warning people not to throw litter from their car windows.