Galway City Council cuts grass collection service

From this week’s Galway City Tribune – Galway City Council’s decision to end the practice of collecting grass cuttings and other ‘green’ waste from residents’ clean-ups has been blasted as “ridiculous” and “a big mistake”.

As part of the local authority’s ‘Greener Green Waste’ initiative which was announced this week, the Council acknowledged the efforts of residents in keeping their local areas clean and tidy while enhancing biodiversity, but stated that as part of the Tidy Towns initiative, many residents’ groups had undertook works on communal green areas in their estates such as collecting grass and pruning shrubs.

They were then collecting this in special Council-supplied bags for the local authority to collect, thereby creating a scenario where a natural product was being turned into a waste product which had to be disposed of.

The collection of these bags will cease from today (Friday).

The Council said: “The Parks Department has witnessed cutting back of shrubbery during the bird nesting season and the cutting of grass very short, thereby eliminating many species that attract bees, such as orchids.

“It has therefore been requested that residents comply with new rules which recommend the mulching of grass – a practice used by the Council grass cutting service whereby grass clippings, leaves and pruning material is dispersed in thin layers on the soil to break down naturally.

“This grass is not collected as part of the process and residents are requested not to collect this grass and bag it as it then becomes waste.”

This decision has been met with outrage from residents’ groups across the city, with one group on the western side of the city calling it a “ridiculous decision”.

“Our estate and estates around the city have been tending to the green areas and planting flower beds for years. That’s what the Tidy Towns competition is all about,” one residents’ group member said.
This is a shortened preview version of this article. To read it in full, see this week’s Galway City Tribune. You can buy a digital edition HERE.