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23 Oct 2025

Maynooth crowned cleanest town in Ireland

Littering survey finds that Maynooth is cleanest town in Ireland

Maynooth crowned cleanest town in Ireland

Maynooth is the cleanest town in Ireland, according to a new survey, but there is a significant rise in coffee cup and vape litter across the country.

The latest survey, carried out by An Taisce on behalf of the Irish Business Against Litter (Ibal) group, shows that for the first time since surveys began 20 years ago, no area was found to be "seriously littered".

While litter levels rose slightly nationwide, over 60% of towns surveyed were deemed clean in 2023, with Maynooth edging out Mallow and a much improved Sligo to take the title of cleanest town.

Waterford was again the cleanest city, ahead of Galway. These were the only cities to be judged ‘clean’, with Cork city centre improving to ‘moderately littered’ but Dublin falling to ‘littered’, alongside Limerick city.

"This is a disappointing result for Dublin and Limerick city centres, given that they both enjoyed ‘clean’ status a few years ago," said IBAL’s Conor Horgan.

"There are many challenges facing our capital city, but clean streets are an important starting point on the path to recovery."

"For years our worst performing areas were deemed either ‘litter blackspots’ or ‘seriously littered’. This baseline would seem to be changing, with ‘littered’ becoming the bottom tier,"  Mr Horgan continued.

"Cleanliness begets cleanliness, and there is reason to hope the improvement will continue in future years."

A surprise finding of the IBAL study was the rise in coffee cup litter, which is now close to peak-Covid levels, with coffee cups  found at over 30% of the 500+ sites surveyed.

"We are concerned at potential delays in introducing a coffee cup levy,” said Mr Horgan.

“We believe this action is needed to stamp out a product which is out of step with the circular economy. Irrespective of how recyclable or compostable take-away cups are, these statistics show too many of them are ending up on our streets.”

IBAL highlight that Killarney appears to have benefited from having banned single-use cups last year, a move embraced by the community.

There was another significant rise in the prevalence of disposable vapes, highlighted previously as an emerging source of litter. These were found in more than 10% of all sites covered. 

The group also welcomed the introduction next month of the Deposit Return Scheme as a potential game-changer in the fight against litter, much as the plastic bag levy was.

The scheme will see consumers pay a deposit of 15 cent on cans and up to 25 cent on plastic bottles, refundable on their return. 

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