'Waste' of moneyCouncils spend £618,959 on street cleaning

Despite having the two lowest figures in the whole of Northern Ireland, Moyle spent 364,370 on picking up others litter and cleaning the streets during 2008/9 - this compares with 254,589 in Ballymoney.

Meanwhile Northern Ireland’s councils spent a combined 34million – an average of 93,150 a day – on street cleaning last year.

As householders receive their annual rates bill, Environmental Minister Edwin Poots believes ‘we could all save valuable pounds by cleaning up our streets and taking home our litter’.

Calling on everyone to ‘clean up their act’, the Minister said: "We all share responsibility for tackling the blight of street litter. By changing our attitudes and behaviour, not only could we benefit financially, we can also improve the quality of our environment.

“Belfast City Council alone spent over 10.8million last year cleaning its streets. Eight other councils have spent more than 1million each on clearing up litter. This is money that could be spent on improving facilities and services for ratepayers.

“Naturally there is a variance between how much each council pays to clear up litter but the bottom line is that they are all paying too much.

"I ask everyone to think about how we dispose of our rubbish and to take pride in their local area. Money your councils spend on cleaning litter from our street could be put to use improving other services such as our parks and playgrounds."

Aidan McPeake, Head of Technical Services for Moyle District Council added: “Moyle District Council takes great pride in the fact that we have one of the tidiest districts in Northern Ireland.

“We mechanically sweep all towns and villages within the 30mph speed limit once a week. We also empty all litter bins as required in towns and villages daily and cleanse roads outside of the 30pmh once a week using our litter pickers.

“This level of cleansing is over and above the requirements of the Litter (Northern Ireland) Order 1994 Code of Practice but due to the fact that we are a tourist destination it is necessary to provide this high level of service.

“We get very few complaints regarding litter and have one of the highest customer satisfaction surveys reports for street cleansing. The high costs are linked to the fact that although we are the smallest district we still require the same equipment to cleanse the streets. We also cover a large geographical area and rural road network that is not taken into consideration within the report.”

* Ballymoney costs are unverified - audited accounts not available.