This article is from page 83 of the 2008-07-22 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 83 JPG
THE business community in Ennis is seeking further talks with Ennis Town Council ahead of the introduc- tion of new litter byelaws.
The council is tightening the laws on the disposal and storage of litter outside premises in a bid to reduce the amount of litter on the streets, long a source at irritation in the council chamber.
Businesses, however, are concerned at the impact the new byelaws will have. Many of them lack the correct facilities to store rubbish to meet the proposed guidelines.
Rita McInereny, CEO of Ennis
Chamber of Commerce, said that while meetings between businesses and council officials have been con- Structive, further discussions are re- quired.
“The objectives of the byelaws are something that all businesses wel- come and agree on. Everyone ben- efits if the town is cleaner and more aesthetically pleasing. The end result would certainly be welcome and there is no certainly no opposition to that proposal,’ said Ms McInerney.
She added, “The council have been very accommodating so far and have met on a couple of occasions. But there is a lot of concern out there. Businesses are under pressure as it is
and this would make things harder. A lot of businesses don’t have the plan- ning permission for an area to store waste. We would be looking to meet with councillors to put forward sug- gestions and ideas before the byelaws are brought in”
Ms MclInereny said the proposed byelaws have forced businesses to re-evaluate their means of waste disposal and in some cases has even reduced their overall level of waste produced.
She said “It certainly has forced businesses to take a good, hard look at what they are doing, which is no harm. I know some people have sig- nificantly cut down on the amount
of waste they are producing. In one instance, a business has reduced their waste from 13 bins to 4 bins. Businesses are investing in crushers and bailers and different systems of disposing waste. But there are still genuine cases out there, where there is still an issue about where people are going to put their bins.”
She added, “So far there has been problems with suggestions; one per- son’s point of view against some- one else’s. It might be a case that we might have to look at bringing in different bins for different busi- nesses. The problems vary, depend- ing on whether you are talking about a small or large business”.