69 cans, 32 plastic bottles, 12 glass bottles, seven tablets or medication & 103 other miscellaneous pieces – all were caught by a floating net placed across the River Burren in July alone.
Carlow Regional Youth Services’s Green Team had put the barrier, which was made from recycled materials, across the stretch at the start of the month with a plan to remove it after the 31 days.
Instead they’ve decided to leave it there for a few weeks more before they present their findings on Water Heritage Day, August 25.
Tadhg Twohig is a youth support worker with CRYS and says the group was only a little surprised by the volume of what they pulled from the river “We didn’t think there’d be that much volume to be honest with you because you’d see some scattered around, see the reason we put it there is that’s kinda the last stop before the Burren hits the Barrow there and we were thinking any of the rubbish that’s coming down the river once it hits the Barrow there’s not a whole lot we can do anything about it, it’s a small group that we have there’s five at the moment but we’re hoping to expand that group once the school year starts back again”.
He adds that the project is something CRYS might extend to other parts of the county.
