Longford town reclaims ‘clean’ status and has risen in IBAL league table

Longford town has reclaimed its ‘clean’ status and has risen to 22nd position in the Irish Business Against Litter (IBAL) league table.

In June 2025, Longford town was judged to have lost its ‘clean’ status and it occupied 30th position in the ranking of 40 towns.

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However, in positive news, the latest survey from business group IBAL places Longford town, a former competition winner, in 22nd and says the town is ‘Clean to European norms’.

The An Taisce report for Longford town stated, “A very good result for Longford, one of its best since winning the IBAL league a number of years ago.”

The report continued, “There were no heavily littered sites. A big improvement was noted at the residential area of Congress Terrace / Ward's Terrace – particularly the derelict houses on Ward’s Terrace, these have been boarded up / fenced up – this time around the area was moderately littered.”

The report cautioned that there were a few sites which just missed the top litter grade – these included Ballymahon Street and Longford Library – and advised that ‘not much effort is required to attain the top grade’ at these sites.

Top ranking sites in Longford included the Deposit Return Scheme at Tesco, the grounds of St. Mel’s College Park and a couple of the approach routes.

Sligo finished on top of the IBAL table for the first time.

IBAL’s Conor Horgan said the most pleasing finding of 2025 was the progress made in socially disadvantaged areas.

He explained, “Even areas at the foot of our rankings have significantly lower litter levels than a year ago. Dublin City Centre and North Inner City, while still littered, are cases in point. The investment being made by Dublin City Council seems to be already paying fruit, and we are set to see further progress in 2026 if the Council comes good on its promise of replacing bags with bins across the city. This could be a landmark year in the fight against litter.”

Mr Horgan said the survey revealed that the Deposit Return Scheme continues to have a positive impact on the cleanliness of towns and cities, with a 10% drop in the prevalence of cans and plastic bottles compared to the previous year. He added, “These two types of litter are now 60% less common than when the scheme was introduced in early 2024.”

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Mr Horgan revealed that coffee cups remained one of the most commonly found forms of litter and was evident in one fifth of all sites surveyed.

“A real disappointment in a generally positive year has been the likely collapse of coffee cup schemes in towns such as Killarney,” outlined Mr Horgan. “It is apparent that such schemes will only work with statutory backing. As our data today bears out, without Government intervention coffee cups will remain an unsightly and entirely unnecessary blot on the landscape across our towns. The prevarication from the Government on the issue is striking - a levy was promised all of four years ago – and sends out a worrying signal. Weaning ourselves off single-use coffee cups should not be such a big deal.”