DUNMANWAY and Castletownbere were named as town winners in Cork County Council’s prestigious anti-litter awards this week.
The work of tireless volunteers who give their time and effort to picking up litter was acknowledged by the Council at the event.
The Anti-Litter Challenge awards were held at County Hall, and attended by over 140 community representatives from towns and villages across the county.
Winners in the Towns Category were: Towns Caategory A – 1st Dunmanway; 2nd Passage West; 3rd Millstreet. Towns Category B – 1st Castletownbere; 2nd Kinsale; 3rd Schull. Towns Category C – 1st Mallow; 2nd Charleville; 3rd Crosshaven. Most improved town – Cobh; County Final Large Village – Saleen; County Final Small Village – Ballinhassig.
The competition originated in the 1990s and the Council said it ‘brings an element of friendly inter-community competition to the ongoing problem’ of dealing with litter. A total of 20 towns and 66 villages across Cork entered in 2024 and their streets, footpaths and roads were judged over six weeks in May and June.
Each place that entered was scored based on the presence of litter and those with the highest scores received special recognition and a coveted county title.
Deputy county mayor Cllr Martin Coughlan praised the voluntary effort and commented that the standard of cleanliness was high this year, as was evident to anyone travelling throughout the county. Cllr Coughlan said that supporting communities in their endeavours would continue to be central to the Council’s work.
Council chief executive Moira Murrell endorsed the deputy mayor’s comments and said the challenge was one of the Council’s most significant community initiatives.
She expressed the hope that the same level of civic pride and community spirit could also be harnessed to address the pressing challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss.
The winners were announced in the various categories, details of which had been a closely guarded secret up to that point. While the Anti-Litter Challenge is competitive in nature, the Council acknowledges the hard work and dedication of all those who participated. The result is that all towns and villages were cleaner.
John Murphy and Sandra O’Shea representing the town of Castletownbere , which was placed first in category B towns, seen with Martin Coughlan and Moira Murrell.
