Shopping trollies should be fitted with wheel lock devices, says Waterford councillor
The issue of abandoned shopping trollies was raised at the meeting
A Waterford councillor has suggested supermarket trollies should be fitted with wheel lock devices.
Cllr Thomas Phelan said at the June sitting of the Dungarvan-Lismore District Council that trollies are being littered around Dungarvan.
He suggested the council change the bylaws to require supermarkets to fit their trollies with devices that lock the wheels beyond a certain distance.
"Yesterday, I came across a trolly from one supermarket and another on the far side of the causeway and another three trollies left in various places," he said.
"This morning I saw another one," he added.
Cllr Phelan went on to comment: “I know that in some towns large supermarket chains are required to have devices on the wheels of trollies so they can only go so far."
"Could we look at the same for Dungarvan and other towns who have a problem with it,” said Cllr Phelan.
Senior Executive Officer in the Environment section of Waterford City and County Council Dawn Wallace said she didn’t think they had the power to do that.
However, she said the local authority can fine supermarkets for loose trollies.
“I’m not sure if we have the powers to enforce particular methodologies for how to maintain trollies but do report them on the CRM, because we fine supermarkets who don’t collect their own trollies,” said Ms Wallace.
During the update from the environment section, Cllr Donnchadh Mulcahy asked if there were as an update on CCTV for litter management.
Ms Wallace said they had held the first meeting of the oversight group.
The next step will be the tender process and then data protection and impact assessment.
Once that is done, the plan will go out for public consultation.
“Bear in mind and to be clear, these are going to be based on the evidence we hold on dumping on CRM," she said.
"So if you haven’t been reporting them and you have an area you think is particularly bad buts it’s not been reported, we will have no justification for using CCTV for this purpose," she added, before commenting: "So I want to remind people of that."
Ms Wallace said that subject to the availability of contractors, they would hope to have the cameras up and running by September.
Cllr Mulcahy also asked that operators of clothes and bottle banks update their stickers with their phoneline clear so they can be contacted when full.
Ms Wallace said she would pass that along to the team to contact them.
