The Department of the Environment in Ireland recently announced the results of a survey of litter strewn throughout ten local authority areas.

The results showed that 15% of locations had moderate to significant pollution levels, 1% of locations were grossly polluted, and 80% of locations were unpolluted or only slightly polluted.

In a country with one of the highest levels of tobacco addiction in the world, cigarette butts, empty packets and their wrappers made up 67% of the litter in the areas surveyed.

Discarded food accounted for 11% of all street litter

The survey will now be extended to cover all of the country's 88 local authority areas.

A spokesman for the Department of the Environment said the survey was a means of finding the tools to help local authorities boost their performance in reducing the amount of litter.

Illegal dumping of hospital waste and other materials has been the subject of numerous newspaper reports in recent weeks. It is to be hoped that action will replace rhetoric in an effort to clean up urban areas and the countryside in general. Tourism, a major component of the economy, will suffer the consequences of inaction.