Illegal dumpers who throw their household rubbish on the street have for the the first time been publicly shamed by Dublin City Council. The council has erected a poster in one of the city's worst litter blackspots in the north inner city, showing 12 pictures of people who were caught on CCTV dumping rubbish on the street.
The faces of the men and women are slightly blurred, due to the quality of the CCTV footage, but they would be able to identify themselves from the images, as most likely would their neighbours , the council said. “This is the first poster we’ve put up showing people dumping their rubbish, and we got an instant reaction,” John McPartlan, public domain officer with the council said.
“We have identified that the people in the images are local people and, within a few hours of the poster going up, we had one person call in to us asking for the picture to be taken down because their neighbours would know who they were.”
The poster has been bolted to a wall behind a Perspex shield at Frankfort Cottages, near the Five Lamps, one of the city's worst areas for illegal dumping. CCTV cameras were installed a number of weeks ago and they had some effect in reducing dumping. However within a day of the poster going up last week, the street was clear.
“It was remarkable. For the last 10 years we’ve had signage there warning people not to illegally dump, but every day we would have to clear up bags, and sofas and other furniture, and even builders’ rubble, but this poster has made such a difference.”
The poster shows people dumping refuse sacks and smaller supermarket bags, as well as a woman dumping a suitcase and two young men dumping a sofa. Mr McPartlan said it would be his recommendation that fines would be issued against all those pictured. The fine is €150 for each dumping incident.
Running the CCTV at Frankfort Cottages is costing the council €600 a week, but such has been its success that the scheme is likely to be extended. The council had a number of locations it was planning to target, Mr McPartlan said.
