Litter poster campaign

Kilcullen Community Action is fighting the withdrawal of the town's Council litter-cleaning service with a positive message in a poster campaign which asks people to keep Kilcullen clean and bring home their litter.



The posters, by local designer Michelle Ryan, use slogans such as ‘Up to our Eyes with Council Li….’ and ‘Keep Kilcullen Clean, Bring Home your Litter’, in an effort to increase awareness of the lack of a Council service and to urge people to act positively.

KCA is the group responsible for Kilcullen’s entry into the Tidy Towns Competition. They had threatened to withdraw from the competition because of the lack of support from the Council but decided instead that a poster campaign to help with the litter alongside a campaign for the reinstatement of a proper service would be more constructive.

KCA chairman Kieran Forde said they were driven to this action because they had been asking Council officials for years to put a proper cleaning service in place.

The town used to have a dedicated worker, but this service was withdrawn upon his retirement. Despite this, the Council insisted Kilcullen was getting the same litter service as every other town. In frustration at the lack of response, KCA presented a bag of litter from the town’s Main St to Council officials in Áras Chill Dara a few weeks ago. It was only after this action that the Council finally admitted in a letter to the group that the town had suffered a reduction in service.

On a positive note, they said this service 'was coming up for review' in the near future. KCA intends to use the opportunity to campaign for a proper service for the town, which has had an increase in population from 2,000 to almost 5,000 in four years.

“We are delighted with the posters, and hope it will draw people’s attention to the lack of services in the town,” said Kieran Forde. "While it is always a good thing to encourage people not to drop litter, we are asking for a special effort while the service remains almost non-existent. Each year, a small group of people pick litter and make every effort to have the town looking its best for the Tidy Towns competition. We need people to support us in this effort.”

Orla O'Neill.