Up to 40 tonnes of rubbish collected over St Patrick's Day in Dublin city centre
A clean-up crew tackled 40 tonnes of post-Paddy’s day waste, wading through a sea of cans and bottles to restore the city after a night of carnage.
In a video shared on Dublin City Council’s Instagram page, the sheer scale of rubbish was on full display with the caption “Bit of a party in town last night!” Following this, the council posted the clean-up results and has issued a sincere thanks to more than 450 hard-working waste management staff who were busy cleaning the city over the entire St Patrick’s Festival.
Working together with An Garda Siochana, Dublin Fire Brigade , Dublin City Council Event Management Team, and event organisers, preparation for this cleaning operation began at the start of the year. With 50 staff on duty from 10pm to 6am, the crew provided a full street cleaning and washing service and delivered over 100 litter barrels to pre-agreed locations.
To ensure this massive operation ran smoothly, the waste management team divided the parade route into four zones. Zone 1 focused on the staging area through O’Connell St, and saw 20 staff manually and mechanically sweep pavements and footpaths, while removing any horse manure.
Zones 2 and 3 covered O'Connell St to Patrick’s St and all city centre streets, including the boardwalk. These key zones were serviced from 6am to 9pm, and had 70 staff on duty at all times throughout the day.
Zone 4 covered the area from St. Patrick’s St to St. Stephen’s Green, where the parade finished. Here, a team of 20 staff remained in the area until the parade finished when it was thoroughly cleaned before they serviced the Camden Street area.
All requests for services were directed through the waste management inspector who was in constant contact with clean-up teams from the control room. Crews that normally begin their shift at 6am started at 4am this morning to bring the city-centre up to standard as quickly as possible.
Across the city centre, 924 public litter bins were serviced several times each day and the 100-plus litter barrels were serviced constantly throughout the day on St Patrick’s Day. It is anticipated that roughly 40 tonnes of waste was collected through mechanical and manual street cleaning, and the continuous cycle of emptying public litter bins and barrels on St Patrick’s Day.
“Dublin City Council would like to thank all its more than 450 hard-working Waste Management staff for their excellent efforts to clean the city after a very busy few days over the St Patrick’s Festival,” a statement from the council said.
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