The introduction of the Deposit Return Scheme saw a marked reduction in plastic bottles and cans littering streets, but overall litter levels were mainly unchanged from last year, the latest IBAL survey has shown.
Naas was deemed the cleanest town, with Dublin's north inner city the most littered, in the survey carried out by Irish Business Against Litter.
Forty towns and cities were surveyed, with Naas coming top of the rankings for the third time, ahead of Kilkenny and Monaghan town.
An Taisce, which carries out the survey on behalf of IBAl, said Naas' achievement "didn't happen overnight" and cited the recently opened Naas Plaza among many sites said to be "spotless".
Overall 60% of the towns and cities surveyed were deemed 'clean', with Galway replacing Waterford as the cleanest city.
However, city areas took all but one of the bottom ten places in the league table, with 'littered' Ballybane in Galway and Dublin city centre deteriorating year-on-year.
Dublin's north inner city was the only area to be deemed 'seriously littered'.
Inspectors recorded "vast quantities of loose food and alcohol related litter had been discarded" near Emmet Road in Dublin, while Sherrard Street Upper had open bags of domestic rubbish lying around.
Another litter blackspot was Crinian Strand which had "large household items e.g., mattresses/furniture being discarded along the pavement, along with at least a dozen black sacks - the contents of which were being scavenged by seagulls".
Conor Horgan of IBAL said the findings strengthen the case for a ban on bag bins in Dublin city.
The IBAL survey also found a near 50% fall in the prevalence of plastic bottles and cans in the more than 500 sites monitored since the Deposit Return Scheme was introduced last year.
Mr Horgan said: "We are definitely seeing cans and bottles disappear from our streets, which is very welcome - not only are they unsightly, but the bottles contribute to the very real problem of plastic pollution.
"However, it is clear from our survey that people continue to discard a wide range of litter types with flagrant disregard for their surroundings."
Killarney, which banned disposable coffee cups in 2023, was one of the most improved towns last year, rising from 14th to fourth in the rankings.
Naas volunteer says quick response helps
Voureen Hennesy, Secretary of Naas Tidy Towns, said she was delighted with today's news that the town came out top of the pile, adding that it takes a real effort.
"We have a presence on the road seven days a week," she says
"We have about 55 volunteers who are involved in this program. There's a rota, there's a WhatsApp groups. We report anything that's littered, and we deal with it immediately. And I think that's probably the trick, is to deal with it as quickly as quickly as possible, so it doesn't get out of hand."
It is a different story though in Dublin north inner city. On Sherrard Street Upper, local resident and Green Party councillor Janet Horner said "it’s a very complex problem".
"I think people often like to blame it on singular or individual factors, but at the end of the day, we rely on bags instead of wheelie bins, so that means more bags out in the street.
"In general, there's a very high number of short-term tenancies, which means a lot of the time people struggle to get a bin contract. A lot of the housing in this area, you might have 20 people living in one building. So, organising and managing a bin contract can be difficult - there's sometimes language barriers," she said.
There is no "silver bullet" to fix the problem overnight, Ms Horner said, but added that there are different measures that can be brought in.
"We want to see seagull-proof bags brought in. We want to see changes in bylaws and make landlords more responsible for their tenants having a bin contract in place.
"We want to see more education projects there. We want to see an increase in resources for street cleaning. And we want to see changes to what our enforcement powers are as a council so that when we know people are flouting the law and doing so knowledgeably, that we can crack down and we can ensure there are consequences to that as well," she said.
A ban on bin ban collections for businesses which was introduced last week in the south of the city is set to be extended northside later this year.
