CRIME: the small stuffFly-tipping refuse, graffiti and bicycle theft are rampant, yet there is no accurate indication of their incidence, or of the extent of convictions for such petty crime. In a short series Ronan McGreevyoutlines efforts to stem the kind of criminal activity that blights our urban and rural landscape
Just off the busy N81 and south of Hollywood village in Co Wicklow, there is a secluded country road favoured by walkers and horse riders.
The road winds through a glen with yellow gorse bushes dotting the precipitous outcrops. Young birch and beech trees cover the more gentle slopes and the roadside verges are filled with common dog violets, wood sorrels and a variety of mosses.
It is an area of outstanding natural beauty reflected in its location on the edge of the Hollywood Glen National Heritage Area, but this idyllic vista turns ugly very quickly when one passes the small ESB substation on the left side of the road.
There, dumped along a steep incline which runs down to a clear water stream, are examples of some of the worst and most irresponsible fly-tipping.
For a third of a kilometre, the hillside is littered with every kind of rubbish imaginable. There are ubiquitous black plastic bags, bottles, fertiliser bags and builders' materials.
A cooker, which has clearly been there for months, if not years, is gathering moss. There are fridges, freezers, a toy dumper truck as big as a small tractor and even a kitchen sink.
There are also two dead lambs, one white and one black, dumped just yards from the side of the road and the bones of an unidentified wild animal.
"This isn't littering, this is environmental vandalism," says Ian Davis the manager of the PURE project (Protecting Uplands and Rural Environments).
PURE was set up last September by five local authorities, Coillte and the National Parks and Wildlife Service to deal with the perennial problem of dumping in the Wicklow mountains.
It has a dedicated truck, a hotline and this month has installed secret CCTV cameras in two secluded locations to catch illegal dumpers.
"It is always the case that the more scenic and aesthetically nice a place is, the more it is affected by dumping, because these places tend to be isolated and therefore the temptation is greater for dumpers," he says.
The cost of the clean-up operation will be put out to tender and the cost will be measured in thousands not hundreds of euros. It is likely to be labour intensive as there will be no access for a dumper or a forklift truck. A small army of men will be needed to remove all the rubbish.
Last month the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said the problem of large-scale dumping in Wicklow, which caused a huge scandal in the early part of this decade, was no more.
That was when a blind eye was turned to the dumping of thousands of tonnes of rubbish, including hospital waste, and nearly 100 illegal dumping sites were discovered.
However, as one problem has disappeared, fly-tipping has got worse and the net effect is much the same.
When PURE started collecting illegal dumping after Christmas, it was collecting three tons of rubbish a day. That was put down to the Christmas excesses with people discarding toys, furniture and household goods.
"We were sending it out empty in the morning and it was coming back full in the evening," Davis says.
Now, after a leafleting campaign, PURE is still collecting three tons of rubbish a day and the volume of calls to the project's hotline is running at 20 a day. The volume of calls to a national hotline set up for the same purpose by the EPA was estimated at 1,500 last year.
The "Dump the Dumpers" hotline was supposed to report on large-scale dumping, but most of the complaints have been about fly-tipping. According to Jim Moriarty, a senior inspector with the EPA, this reflects a change in the problem as witnessed in counties like Wicklow. "The large-scale dumping that happened in Wicklow in the early 2000s doesn't happen anymore," he says.
"The enforcement is better, the licensing and permitting systems are better. Hauliers now have to have a waste collection permit. The net has definitely tightened.
"The dynamic has changed. Now we have waste bins and charging and this has had a knock-on effect. Now they know that if I put out a bin that's full I'm going to be charged X and if I put out a bin that's half full it's going to be half of X.
"There's an incentive for people to do something else instead and fly-tipping is becoming a scourge".
The EPA estimates that some 300 prosecutions are brought about by local authorities for illegal waste dumping activities every year.
The remit of the Dump the Dumpers helpline is going to be expanded next month. It will officially include fly-tipping for the first time and also warnings about "the man with the van" - unlicensed hucksters who are paid by the public to take away rubbish and dump it. To that end Wicklow County Council has had a notable success. Earlier this year it prosecuted a builder who gave a load of building material to an illegal dumper to dispose of in a scenic location.
The builder was ordered to pay more than €3,000 in fines and legal costs, a small but significant victory in a never-ending war against waste.
Tomorrow: Graffiti