Dublin City Council’s new national anti-litter awareness drive aims to get Ireland’s young people to ‘Put Litter In It’s Place’. This is the title of the interactive DVD and Education Pack, which Dublin’s Lord Mayor Eibhlin Byrne and Environment Minister John Gormley TD launch at 10.30am on Thursday 26th February in the Mansion House, Dawson Street.

This new awareness initiative builds on the hugely successful ‘Filth’ campaign, which opened up real dialogue and debate amongst young people around the issue of litter.

According to the Lord Mayor “Changing behaviour and attitudes is the key to ensuring that we continue to maintain our environment as cleanly as possible in the most economical way possible.  People create litter, it is people who need to change.”

The information pack contains an 11-minute DVD, which is presented by RTE’s Liam McCormack and also an Information Booklet, which includes plenty of informative and challenging activities for young people and is suitable for both primary and secondary schools.

 Commenting further the Lord Mayor said: "I am delighted to announce that this Information Pack will be distributed to every Primary and Secondary School in the country and  I would like to thank the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government for providing valuable funding assistance for this Dublin City Council initiative. I am confident that our young people will rise to the challenge.  They are the leaders of the future and what better way to practice than taking the lead on our environment.”

Recent figures show that Local Authorities are spending in excess of €100 million per annum on street cleaning with 35,000 tonnes of litter removed from the streets of Dublin alone last year.

According to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government John Gormley, TD “ We invest significant resources in combating our litter problem and progress is indeed being made. Education, in order to build long-term positive behavioural change, is a crucial component of our strategy and I welcome Dublin City Council’s excellent initiative in this regard. We must foster a collective public attitude that looks upon littering as unacceptable behaviour so that we can all look forward to a cleaner, greener Ireland in the future.”

Ends

For further information please contact:
Dublin City Council Press Office: (01) 222 2170 or 086 8150010 E.: info@dublincity.ie or Hugh Coughlan, Dublin City Council, Environment and Engineering Department (01) 222 2022.

Notes to the Editor :

• Nearly 50% of our population admit to littering
• We spend about €100 million every year combating our litter problem.
• It costs nine times as much to clean litter from the street as it does to collect a bin from your house.
• A dedicated website www.putlitterinitsplace.ie has also been set  where people can view the DVD and download copies of the booklet. Students will also be able to upload completed projects suggested in the booklet.
• Tourists make about 5,000 complaints annually about litter.
• 35,000 tonnes of litter removed from our Capital City alone last year.
• 100,000 marine mammals and turtles and over 700,000 sea birds are killed worldwide by litter every year.
• Publicis QMP who worked with the City Council in the production of the Information Pack have assisted with previous anti-litter projects since 2007 and were part of the hugely successful ‘Filth’ campaign which targeted young teens. This campaign has won many awards and is indeed being mirrored by a number of other local government authorities and agencies across the globe.