Call to empty bins in Mayo seven days a week

A MAYO councillor wants to see litter bins emptied seven days a week.

Mayo County Council has been called on to create a county-wide approach to ensure public bins are collected seven days a week across the county to address overflows in many towns and villages at weekends.

The call came from Ballina-based Councillor Mark Duffy by way of a notice of motion he tabled at Monday's monthly meeting of the local authority.

Huge work is being done by community groups across the county, he said, and it is not being helped where the council are not operating a seven-day bin collection service, with bins overflowing as a result.

Society does not stop at 5 p.m. on a Friday and the council must administer services throughout the whole week.

In a written response, he was informed: ‘The environment, climate action and agriculture department allocates the street cleaning budget annually to each municipal district for inclusion in the annual programme of works.

‘The operational decisions regarding service intervals for street cleaning and servicing litter bins are made at municipal district having regard to locations of bins, footfall levels and local arrangements for special events together with local staff arrangements.’

The issue of over-flowing bins has been raised by a number of councillors across the county, both at meetings of the local authority and on social media.