The Avondhu

Littering scourge continues to blight public areas

MARIAN ROCHE

The scourge of littering and flytipping continues, with one caller to The Avondhu urging some personal responsibility from the criminals. A significant quantity of cardboard, pizza boxes, cans and coffee cups littered a bench area on the northside of Mitchelstown for two days this week before the hardworking council staff could deal with the issue.

The caller said she regularly walks around Mitchelstown, and the blight of littering, along with the the attitude of those who do it, is ‘frightening’.

“I know we see all the signs about the dog fouling and everything, which is great, but there is litter everywhere and the rubbish at the bench is just the cherry on top. It seems like nobody has any regard. I think,

with the environmental impacts and the importance of recycling, it’s just frightening.

“There are plenty of rubbish bins; it’s just not good enough anymore. I know we’re getting new street sweepers, but there is personal responsibility. I saw a guy walk over the bridge by Aldi, and just throw a bottle over the wall into the river.”

By continually highlighting the scourge of littering, however, there

is some hope that it will have an impact on people’s sensibilities.

“I myself saw an article before highlighting the effects of spraying weedkiller, and it registered with me, so I just hope someone sees this and it registers with them, and parents speak to their kids about it.”

DETERRENT

When The Avondwent to the site of the rubbish less than two hours after receiving the call, council staff were already there to pick up yet more litter.

One of the staff said that he felt the only way to curtail this behaviour was cameras, and until they were installed he couldn’t see any way of deterring the crime. The two men have a large area to cover extending far outside Mitchelstown, and their daily work can hardly come under criticism. The wave of littering, it seems, is unstoppable.

Lastly in this mini series, let me tell you about the powerful voice and writer that was Audre Lorde. She was a black lesbian, a feminist, author, civil rights activist, poet and librarian, born in New York City, the Big Apple.

Audre published her first poem in Seventeen magazine whilst she was still a student. Poetry would go on to give her a voice, a way to express the anger she felt at injustices and an outlet for the thoughts circling around in her mind.

“I used to speak in poetry. I would read poems, and I would memorise them. People would say, well what do you think, Audre? What happened to you yesterday? And I would recite a poem and somewhere in that poem would be a line or a feeling I would be sharing. In other words, I literally communicated through poetry. And when I couldn’t find the poems to express the things I was feeling, that’s what started me writing poetry, and that was when I was twelve or thirteen.”

She strove to recognise but escape society’s labels of ‘black’ and ‘lesbian’ that sought to marginalise her. She wrote about how her experience as a woman, a black woman and as a black lesbian woman compounded into the daily inequality she faced. She called this out, loudly and defiantly, but rose up against it. She didn’t want to fit into boxes, so she fit into multiple movements instead. She fought for black liberation, *LGBTQIA+ rights and sat in feminist circles.

In 1981 Lorde and her fellow writers founded Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, which was dedicated to furthering the writings of black feminists. Lorde’s honours and awards included a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. A professor of English at John Jay College and Hunter College, Lorde was poet laureate of New York from 1991-1992.

She powerfully wrote, “If I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive.”

Audre Lorde often was the epitome of who this society wanted to oppress, but she believed in herself, held her head high and still became the woman we remember today, leaving behind her words of wisdom. She often said that true, meaningful feminism acted out of the interest of lesbian women and black women. If these women could be free, so could all women.

We have so much to learn from this historical figure but a quote I hold very close, as not to forget, is ‘Revolution is not a one time event’.

After this month is finished and the pride flags are folded up, please continue to learn about, listen to and raise up the LGBTQIA+ community in any way you can.

* (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer/ Questioning, Intersex, Asexual/Ally and more identities eg non-binary and people who don’t feel aligned to a certain label)

APPOINTMENTS

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2022-06-30T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-06-30T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://avondhu.pressreader.com/article/282037625853714

The Avondhu (Ireland)