Cleaning up filth on the Conor Pass
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THE scenic Conor Pass road continues to be used as a rubbish dump by people who are too mean or too lazy to take their refuse to the council's local recycling centre.
The carpark at the summit of the Conor Pass is one of the most popular stops for locals and visitors who want to view the magnificent scenery of the Dingle Peninsula. However, the same location provides some people with the opportunity to easily dispose of domestic rubbish and obsolete household goods. In fact, most of the route from the summit to Pedlars Lake offers these environmental vandals that opportunity.
On Sunday morning some 15 members of the Dingle Hillwalkers Club, both men and women, braved the torrential winter showers and dangerous cliffs to retrieve what others had dumped.
The junk was collected into bags and hauled to the summit by rope or manhandled by volunteers up the steep slopes. One slip could easily result in serious injury or even death, especially in poor weather conditions.
"We try to do this at least once a year. It's disgraceful what some people do. We find beds and other furniture, domestic appliances such as washing machines, fridges and heaters. We've collected bicycles, traffic cones and baby's carraiges. Somebody found a phone today and Martin Scanlon found a dollar bill!," one of the club members, Gene Courtney, told The Kerryman.
Martin must have the Midas touch because he found a five euro note the last time the club cleaned up the place.
Cllr Séamus Cosaí Fitzgerald and Seán Brosnan worked together with bags and rope to haul dumped material to the carpark. They deposited it with other junk before setting off down again to collect more illegally dumped rubbish along the old green road hundreds of feet below.
The club arranges with the council to remove the rubbish from the carpark and transport it to a landfill site. Up to 20 council traffic cones were collected from the cliffs below the road on Sunday. The cones are used when the council is carrying roadworks and are easy prey for vandals. One suggestion is that the council could use high visibility tape rather than cones in such situations.
- Ted Creedon's
