Campaign to prevent drive-thru take-away littering in Limerick

LIMERICK Council is to run an awareness campaign aimed at preventing from people who have used drive-through take-aways.

And the local authority is to also to write to Environment Minister Eamon Ryan to ask if he can consider the possibility of a system to trace offenders.

This came after a recommendation of the environment committee was unanimously adopted by members of the full council.

During this committee meeting, Labour councillor Conor Sheehan had called for car registration numbers to be placed on all take-away boxes to discourage people from throwing litter out of windows.

He expressed his frustration at the amount of litter in the city, saying in his view 90% of this related to take-away packaging.

But in a written reply, the local authority said it could not find a legislative basis under the acts which could compel traders do this.

“In terms of GDPR legislation vehicle registrations would be classed as personal information and it seems the takeaway vendors would have no lawful basis for collecting that information from their customers. In similar advice the Data Protection Commissioner has advised that the collection of such information is disproportionate to the littering offence committed,” the council’s reply said.

Instead of this, Cllr Sheahan’s party colleague, Cllr Elena Secas recommended his recommendation be amended that an awareness campaign be initiated, and Mr Ryan be written to.

This was then agreed to.