Summary

The Chairman of Kilkenny County Council visits Piltown.

“Let’s Team up to Clean Up, Together for Kilkenny”

Cathaoirleach Cllr Pat Fitzpatrick took time out of his busy schedule to take a trip down to Piltown to meet with Gerri Hickey who is a local champion of the “Lets Team Up to Clean Up, Together for Kilkenny”. An environmental initiative, supported by Tirlán/Glanbia Plc, PRL, Panda, Dawn Meats and John O’Shea Trust, provides Kilkenny County Council the opportunity to organise the largest clean up of the county, enabling groups to litter pick their neighbourhoods across the weekend of the 24th/25th and 26th of March.

“Piltown is a hive of activity and this environmental initiative provides an opportunity to encourage community groups with different interests to come out over one weekend to show pride in their local area. The initiative was established to encourage different types of groups to litter pick who in turn will lend a hand to the dozens of development associations and tidy town groups across the county. Groups like Keep Piltown Tidy and Ballyragget Tidy Towns greatly appreciate the assistance that these groups will provide, and the fact that the groups can work independently with bags of litter being collected by the waste contractor Panda who is one of the corporate sponsors of the event, gives communities a great opportunity to make a huge impact over the weekend” commented the Chairman.

Gerri Hickey was delighted to hear that her hard work of promoting the environmental initiative is paying off. “Bernadette Moloney, the Councils campaign co-ordinator informed me this week, that there are 192 groups registered to date, with 9 different community groups registered in the Piltown area alone, and considering the size of our community, there is wonderful interest in this unique environmental initiative locally”.

Groups only have a couple of weeks left to register. Community groups, schools, workplaces and sport clubs from all over the City and County who plan to litter pick their neighbourhoods within speed zones of 60km/ph or less are welcome to participate by registering via https://cleanup.kilkenny.ie/.

Every registered group will need to designate one person to attend a brief health and safety information session. This session less than 30 minutes in duration will take place online and in person sessions to outline how the event will operate. Only after a group representative completes the information session, will their litter kit which contains all the equipment required to complete a litter pick be released. The kit also contains a bag of flowering bulbs which are suitable to plant over the event weekend.

This event is a first for Kilkenny, and with the continued corporate support and sponsorship of Tirlán/Glanbia Plc, PRL, Panda, Dawn Meats and John O’Shea Trust, it is envisaged that it become an annual initiative for communities across the county.