Tullamore impress as Athlone prevents Midlands clean sweep in 2025 litter rankings

Irish Business Against Litter (IBAL) have released their litter rankings for 2025 with the Midlands featuring amongst the forty towns and cities surveyed throughout the country. 

Each area in the Midlands which was part of the study was either clean to or cleaner than European norms with only Athlone losing it's clean status slipping to moderately littered. 

Tullamore improved to finish 5th in the rankings with their An Taisce report stating: "Another excellent result for Tullamore with seven out of the ten sites getting the top litter grade. These included Axis Business Park (exceptionally freshly presented and well maintained), Market Square was attractively presented and well maintained with a virtual absence of litter throughout."

It continued: "The Main Street had some lovely features (colourful tiered planter boxes, attractive paving and trees looking very autumnal), Lloyd Town Park is certainly a gem with all aspects in very good order and clearly it’s a very well respected park environment."

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Mullingar and Portlaoise were also deemed to be clean landing in 14th and 25th place respectively. The report explained: "A typically solid performance by Mullingar with six top ranking sites and just one heavily littered. Mullingar Town Park is a lovely environment with all elements in very good order, county buildings and Mullingar Arts Centre presented very well whilst Oliver Plunkett Street was very much deserving of the top litter grade."

Assessing the Laois capital, the report concluded that it was "another solid showing by Portlaoise, despite the majority of sites falling short of clean status. Top ranking sites included the residential area of Aghnaharna Drive, Glass Bottle Bank at Dunnes Stores and R445 Approach from M7. Improvements were noted at Carmody way which was previously a heavily littered site."

There was contrasting fortunes for Athlone who were the final entry for the midlands as they lost their clean status dropping to 32nd in the latest litter rankings. The findings for the Westmeath town stated that "four heavily littered sites saw Athlone lose clean status. These included John Broderick Street, Paradise Row and Shops at corner of Southern Station Road & Ballymahon Road which need to be addressed if the town is to move back up the rankings."

There were positives for Athlone to take as the An Taisce report added: "Dublin Gate Street / Church Street were very freshly presented and deserving of the top litter grade. A vacant property at Southern Station Road showed notable improvement from a previous IBAL survey when this was heavily littered and this time around it was very much deserving of the top litter grade."

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Sligo took the top spot for 2025 finishing ahead of Leixlip, Westport and Monaghan as the number of towns deemed clean last year rose to 28. Waterford City reclaimed its customary accolade of Ireland’s cleanest city finishing in 6th place overall ahead of Galway City Centre who had to settle for 9th.

The survey also revealed that the Deposit Return Scheme continues to have a positive impact on the cleanliness of towns and cities around the country with a 10% drop in the prevalence of cans and plastic bottles compared to the previous year.

The findings also documented that coffee cups remained one of the most commonly found forms of litter and was evident in one fifth of all sites surveyed whilst the prevalence of disposable vapes, which are set to be outlawed over the course of 2026 was unchanged.