Limerick councillors agree voluntary ban on election posters

COUNCILLORS have agreed a voluntary ban on posters in the upcoming local and European elections. At a meeting of the full council on Monday, Deputy Mayor Cllr Michael Collins argued that it takes 400 years for corriboard, used in posters, to biodegrade. 

During the last local elections in 2014, he said, over 2,000 candidates had contested 949 seats and  some 611,000 posters had been manufactured at a cost of €3m. That was the equivalent of generating 363 tonnes of carbon dioxide or running a family car for 592 consecutive days, he said. The posters alone would have covered 23 Croke Parks, he pointed out. 

Eight million tonnes of plastic a year are going into the world’s oceans, Cllr Collins said and are becoming entangled in the bodies of fish and other marine life. 

“We are trying to tackle climate change locally and nationally,” Cllr Collins said, urging councillors “as leaders in our communities” to support a voluntary ban.

 “I am not trying to impose this on anybody,” he said. But he argued there was considerable public support for a ban. 

In a  Facebook poll which he conducted and in which 1,700 people took part, 1,623 people voted against the use of posters, he said. By using other media, he told his fellow councillors, “you should have no fear of being re-elected.” 

“Let us do our bit locally for climate change,” he said. 

“It would be better if this was a directive from the Minister for the Environment,” Cllr Kieran O’Hanlon said. He agreed with Cllr Collins’ sentiments, he said, but did not think it was realistic at this point in time.

“Most people have their posters paid for by now,” he said. 

“There is a very strong voice coming from young people. It is at our peril that we ignore them,” Cllr Kevin Sheahan warned. 

“The most important word is voluntary,” Cllr John Sheahan said. But he asked: “Are we as sitting councillors trying to corner the market?”

Would new candidates, perhaps not as well known, be put at a disadvantage, he wondered. And would the election turn out to be about who put up posters or not?

He was, he said, “open” to Cllr Collins’ proposal but said it was those who didn’t take down the posters and ties that were causing the real annoyance.