A popular hiking and walking trail in the Wicklow Mountains, Glenmalure Valley has been left destroyed by litter after campers failed to bring their rubbish home with them when they left.
Volunteers at Glenmalure Valley have had their work cut out for them after visitors left the area littered with rubbish, camping equipment and raw meat over the weekend. Sharing a number of photos of the site to the official Leave No Trace Ireland Facebook page, the group said that unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident and is something they have to deal with quite regularly.
"Glenmalure Valley has had extensive levels of litter as a result of large camping groups descending on the area. Tents, bbqs, clothing, sleeping bags, glass bottles, raw meat and other food items, lay strewn across the forest floor for visitors to discover on Sunday.
The local volunteer group reports that unfortunately, incidents such as this are a growing and common occurrence, with over 10 tonnes of refuse and visitor waste being collected and removed over the last two year alone."
The post goes on to say that several other locations in the Dublin Uplands area experienced similar incidents over the weekend including popular locations such as Lough Dan and the Blessington Lakes, each of which recorded "multiple incidents of rubbish and abandoned picnic and camping equipment".
Noting an increase in domestic visitors to the area due to travel restrictions and other measures put in place in response to Covid-19, the group is pleading with the public to bring all their waste with them and dispose of it properly.
Imagery courtesy of John Nolan Wicklow Uplands/Leave No Trace Ireland
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