JUST SAY YES!

A year or two ago there was a movement started on the Internet called “Join Me”. It consisted of members of the general public doing random acts of kindness to others. It culminated in the book of the same name. Some of the ideas were very simple and no doubt improved people moods. Smile at people was a good one. Other ideas were things like pat a dog, swap places with the person behind you in a queue and pop a sugar cube next to an ant’s nest. The idea was very popular and moderately simple to implement. The author, Danny Wallace is now ready to release another book called “Yes Man”. The story tells of his exploits when he decided to say yes to everything that people suggested to him. It cost him an absolute fortune as he was buying everything that was offered. And it also lost him friends. It sounded like an interesting idea (not the loosing friends bit of course) so I tried it myself. I realised that Danny must not have children to keep up such a project. After about ten minutes of my lads running rings around me I introduced the all too familiar word NO back into my vocabulary. I have since taken up a new interest that is keeping me happy at the moment. Complaining! Not to people in supermarket queues about the weather or the state of the nation. This is real complaining aimed directly at large multinational firms about poor customer services and below standard workmanship. It feels great to not take these issues on board. If you have a problem like this, pass it on, it feels great (P.S If any companies would like a mystery shopper –I’m your man!)

AR AIS ARIS BUNCRANA

Luke Ward and Michael Tourish

Michael Gallenagh and Paul Rodden

Dinny's nephew Darren Gillespie

Edel McLaughlin



VISIT THE AR AIS ARIS SITE

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RUBBISH

ADDICTIVE RUBBISH

Hi
I help with the tidy towns clean up campaign every couple of months in my area. I have noticed more and more that the rubbish I collect falls into one certain category…addictive drugs. And even though these drugs are legal and readily available, it doesn’t mean that they are harmless to society. I know it sounds over the top but if you think about what goes into the bin bags you will have to agree. Beer bottles and cans, these all contained the drug alcohol. Sweet wrappers, these contained sugar, which in its refined form is very addictive. Cigarette packets, the cigarettes contained 100 chemicals, some of them such as nicotine are highly addictive. Fast food wrappers. The fast food has addictive properties and too much of this type of food makes you extremely unwell if a proper nutritious diet isn’t followed. I know I sound a bit evangelical and a bit of a fuddy duddy but I thought it was worth a mention.

Regards name and address withheld.

You sound as thought you go on the litter trails around the beaches and car parks. There is no denying that the rubbish thrown out on to the streets contained these addictive substances. Sometimes you probably come across bottles that are still full of beer or alco pops in the hedgerows. These are usually left by people returning from a night out and don’t want their parents to find the stuff in the house so they hide them. Unfortunately they seem to forget where they left them in the morning. Not all rubbish left behind contains drugs though. Someone put a large wooden board on the end of our road with words to congratulate someone called Sam on reaching his (or her) thirtieth birthday. It was witty on the day but it seemed as though Sam was having an exceptionally long celebration as the sign stayed for three weeks before I took it away!

WITCHES KNICKERS

How are you getting on with the carrier bag levy that was introduced way back in March 2002? If you are anything like me you have lapsed into complacency and hardly ever remember to take your “Bag for Life” bag with you to the shops. I usually find myself at the checkout before I remember that I have left it on the kitchen table. We are not alone either. A report out last week showed that the reduction of 95% of bags being bought at the beginning of the charge is slowly creeping back up. We spent €3.2 million on bags in the first three months of last year. During the first three months this year the amount is up by at least another million euro on that figure. So far the government has raised €42 million from the levy, which works out at about 285 million bags being sold. The number is probably far greater than this though because the Department of the Environment is finding it very difficult to keep a tight control on the revenue raised from retailers. A lot of retailers who are linked to recycling schemes such as Repak get paid for their cardboard, because of this they are reluctant to give out boxes because they loose revenue. This hasn’t helped the situation. Ireland is nowhere near the plastic bag capital of the world though, Singapore for example use an estimated 40 billion plastic bags each year. That works out to 27 bags per person per day! Plastic bags have earned the nickname” Witches Knickers” here at home because they are often seen waving around in trees marring the view on the countryside. The bags now only make up 1% of the rubbish thrown into the countryside. They follow behind cigarette packets, plastic bottles, sweet wrappers, beer bottles and cans, cans of pop and fast food packaging

PAVEMENT STICKERS

Fast food packaging is about to experience a radical change in the near future. The Department of the environment are pushing for all fast food packaging to be biodegradable and contain no polystyrene. The packaging will have to show the name of the outlet where it was sold so the litter wardens can take action. Fast food companies pay rates like any other premises and some of them are feeling hard done by because they feel that they are being charged excessively.

The outlets will incur extra charges to clean the streets of rubbish thrown away by people who cannot find room in a street rubbish bin either because it is too full of they are. The Department of the Environment are also intending on coming down hard on chewing gum manufacturers. They want up to €5million from manufacturers to keep the streets clean. Whether this charge will be passed on to the consumer is still under debate. The chances are that it will. Wrigley, the largest manufacturer of the sticky stuff that you tread on or you find stuck to the bottom of your chair, are promising to come out with a less sticky variety that is also bio-degradable-sounds like blu tac to me!

A FEW HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR

Swan Park in Buncrana.

In March this year the smoking ban became law. Trasna House in Ballyliffen was the first pub to introduce the ban opening a few weeks before the law came in.

On the opening night of Trasna House in Ballyliffen the response to the smoke free policy was very positive. If anyone wanted to smoke they went out onto the large patio at the rear of the building. There were a few long-term smokers who never even bothered to go outside the whole of the evening. There was a feeling of fun for those who made an effort to go outside and light up. There was only one instance of someone flouting the policy and the person responsible burnt a hole in the new carpet as he carelessly stubbed the butt out on the ground. Michael feels that the smoke free building will also deter the casual smokers who light a cigarette up only when they have had a few pints. The fact that they have to get up off their comfy chairs and go outside will make people think what they are doing and stop themselves from accepting a cigarette from a friend.

Lisfannon was in the news before Christmas where it is claimed that the dredging isn’t working and the Lifeboat Institution are concerned about the service they can provide at low tides. Clean and Green have had concerns throughout the year on what has been happening at Lisfannon. Here is a clip from a letter published last June.

Over the last week at Lisfannon beach the diggers have moved thousands of tonnes of boulders onto the beach. This is to make a storage pit for the silt that is to be dredged out of the Swilly, which will allow the new ferry access to the pier. A good section of the beach was lost when the golf course expanded and now we are losing a load more. The council say that a set of steps will be put in place so walkers can leave the beach, walk over the golf course and down some more steps to get onto the sand again. That does not really take into account people with disabilities. The coastline will change and what will happens when this pit is full of silt? The silt won’t stop coming to shore because the pit is full, you only have to look at the marina in Faughan to see that. Will the council build another one of these pits, taking up more of the beach? The ferry will hopefully attract tourists to come to the town, they will be greeted by thousands of tonnes of stone covering what once was a lovely stretch of sand, now that’s what I call premeditated vandalism!

Regards, N.S. Buncrana

I went to Lisfannon to see the work for myself. The silt, as you say won’t stop coming when these pits are full. I don’t know much about how silt moves in an estuary but I would have thought that it would be as effective to put the silt collected back into the Swilly as opposed to dumping it on the beach. This work will be an ongoing process now that it has started. I have no doubt that the ferry will be a positive move to improve the infrastructure of the town and will attract tourists to the area. Let’s just hope they still want to come when the developers have finished!


The peninsula has developed a lot. The highly successful Festival Park (Buncrana) opened in May and Clean and Green made a plea to continue to plan for green spaces.

As our towns expand, land is getting more and more valuable to everyone but green belts should be considered. I’m not talking about a small patch of greenery where the builder couldn’t squeeze another house onto an estate because of planning restrictions. I’m talking about using natural features (like a river walk or shore path), to create public walk-ways, parks, big public expanses of greenery and trees (maybe even an arboretum for an added attraction) where any-one can walk, play and get away from the hustle and bustle into a peaceful place. Once land has been developed it’s lost to us. Creating parks is an expensive business, but the rewards go far beyond monetary value, it’s a quality of life, not just for us but also for our children and grandchildren’s children.

New Year is a time for resolutions and new starts. In September clean and green wrote about Feng Shui –which may be a nice way to clean your life up for the new year ahead.

Feng Shui or “Wind and water” is based on oriental practices over 4000 years old. Feng Shui, is now becoming more recognised in the West as an art which creates balance and harmony in the environment. It has mistakenly been seen as another form of interior design. It is much more than this. It is the understanding of the flow of energies in our home and workplaces and how these affect our lives. In Feng Shui the home is seen as a mirror, reflecting our states of mind, past experiences, aspirations and current life situations. After all a cluttered home leads to a cluttered mind! Using the principles of Feng Shui we can learn to identify an imbalance of energy and set about healing it with specific enhancements.