Students call for action on litter bins and Re-Turn machines
In addition to proposals for improving local road safety, 'Junior Mayors' from six local schools last week highlighted a number of other issues they would like to see tackled in the Athlone Moate Municipal District.
At Wednesday's meeting with councillors, Athlone Community College representative Niamh O'Reilly called for further investment in Connaught Street, while students from Ardnagrath NS addressed the problem of litter in the District.
Having claimed a prize for their project 'What can Athlone learn? Ardnagrath's Green Team returns' at the ECO-UNESCO Young Environmentalist Awards, students James Cronolly, Mark Vargovcik, Donnacha Brady and Eoghan Sullivan reiterated their focus on reducing the litter levels in the District.
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Pictured ahead of the ‘Junior Mayors’ address in Athlone Civic Centre were, back row, L-R, Willie Ryan, District Engineer, Cllr Tom Farrell, Annie Blessington District Manager, Siobhan Flynn, Teacher, Cllr Paul Hogan and Cllr Frankie Keena, Mayor of Athlone. Front row, L-R, Ardnagrath NS students, Mark Vargovcik, James Cronnolly, Donnacha Brady and Eoghan Sullivan. PaulMolloy (2024)Image 2 of 2
Willie Ryan District Engineer, Cllr. Tom Farrell, Annie Blessington District Manager Westmeath Co. Co., Cllr. Paul Hogan and Cllr. Frankie Keena Mayor Athlone and Moate Municipal District with Jason Flannery from Milltown NS at Athlone Civic Centre. Photo Paul Molloy. PaulMolloy (2024)As part of their winning project, the students met with local councillors to discuss the issue, highlighting litter blackspots and the number of public waste bins in the District.
They researched waste management practices in cities worldwide and, inspired by the Re-turn Scheme, designed and built a prototype bin capable of sorting litter into recyclable and non-recyclable waste. Addressing the Chamber, the students said litter remained an ongoing problem and that there weren't enough bins in the District.
They acknowledged that some bins were wrongly being used for domestic refuse, but argued that more bins would reduce unseemly litter sights in the locality.
The students concluded their address with a demonstration of the prototype bin which helped earn their ECO-UNESCO Young Environmentalist Award.
Echoing a similar theme, the four student representatives from St Oliver Plunkett's NS, Ethan McArdle, Ollie Brown, Daniel Dwyer and Eric Meade, stated that there was also a litter problem, and a shortage of bins, in Moate. The students were also of the view that the lack of "litter punishment signage" contributed to the ongoing litter issue.
The Moate students told the meeting that the Re-turn deposit recycling scheme machine in the town's SuperValu branch was regularly "full to the brim" and they said a second Re-turn Scheme machine was needed in Moate to cope with public demand.
The Moate students called for the provision of extra space in their school, as the town continues to grow, while the lack of a specific car parking location for parents dropping off and collecting students was also mentioned.
Jason Flannery of Milltown NS, in Rathconrath, spoke of an anomaly created by placing his school in the catchment area of Ballymahon for the purpose of allocating places in secondary schools.
Despite Milltown NS being closer in distance to Mullingar than Ballymahon, Jason said that attending secondary school in Westmeath's county town had become "more problematic" due to an oversubscription of students. He said that Milltown students who wanted to attend second-level in Mullingar were dependent on having had a sibling or parent attend their secondary school of choice.