‘One-off’ Galway City Council grass cuttings collection

It was the last hurrah for grass collection in the urban area with Galway City Council last week agreeing to pick up hundreds of bags of cuttings ‘left out’ over recent months.

With the grass-cutting season now drawing to a close, the City Council has warned however that the collection service will not be happening again – instead the ‘green stuff’ will have to be mulched back into the ground or ‘brown binned’.

The issue was raised at last week’s City Council meeting by Cllr Terry O’Flaherty who submitted a motion seeking the collection of the grass and cuttings that had been ‘bagged’ by local residents and community groups.

Cllr O’Flaherty said that she was ‘full of admiration’ for people in the community who gave so freely of their time and energy to keep communal green areas cut and tidied up.

At the meeting, she had called upon the City Council to continue the grass collection service ‘indefinitely’ to support the work of community groups who maintained their own green areas.

“The Council have now made it clear that they will no longer remove the likes of grass cuttings and branches collected during this work.

“They have told me that this message has been communicated to all those who contacted the Council by phone to avail of the service they had previously offered.

“The Council had indicated that the change as regards grass collection was also advertised in local newspapers and on social media,” said Cllr O’Flaherty.

She said that the Council decision to remove the bags of grass and cuttings that had accumulated in different parts of the city was very welcome but added that the local authority had made it clear  this was a ‘one-off’ arrangement.

“So I would appeal to people who have been leaving out this green waste for collection by the local authority to stop doing so from now on, as it just won’t be collected.

“They should put green waste like grass cuttings in their brown bins. There’s a benefit to the environment in doing this, as it will reduce the overuse of plastic bags,” added Cllr O’Flaherty.

She pointed out that the City Council has undertaken to work proactively with residents and Community Employment (CE) Schemes to keep their public areas looking well, including an offer for the provision of composting facilities.

The Council have also asked people not to prune back landscaping on public lands as they say this often causes damage and disease to the plants – they [Council] have, according to Cllr O’Flaherty, offered to provide a mulching service for a day in Spring and one in Autumn.