The future of waste management in the west is uncertain following Galway County Council's decision last Friday night to reject the Connacht draft waste management plan. This follows Galway Corporation's rejection of the plan earlier in the summer.
The situation is now unclear, according to the consultants who were charged with drawing up the plan, and who have been asked to submit new proposals for Galway city and county only, rather than for the region. Galway city is now embroiled in another row over privatisation of rubbish collections.
However, if there are hopes of a new commitment to recycling, it may be a long time coming out in Connemara. The wildlife film-maker Eamon de Buitlear experienced reality at first hand last month while on a short holiday in An Cheathru Rua. He made a visit to the blanket bog at Doire an Fheich just beyond the turn for Clifden at Casla, and was very disappointed at what he saw.
The "signpost" for this reporter, who followed him out, was the plastic bag blowing in the breeze just before Loch Bharr an tSruthain. Just around the corner on the gravel track up the bog lay several abandoned fridges, a car door, a car radiator, a rusted fuel tank, and a collection of domestic rubbish - much of it recent.
Yoghurt cartons, plastic milk containers, bottles, beer cans, plastic sheeting and biscuit tins could be identified among the heather, and there was more as the track continued towards Loch an Mhianaigh. Yet not 100 yards away just off the main road, a Galway County Council notice in both languages decrees "Cosc Ar Bruscar", "No Dumping".
"This is an area that I have filmed again and again and it has been painted by a number of artists," Mr de Buitlear told The Irish Times. "It is on a walking route across one of the finest blanket bogs and it is a dreadful pity that this sort of attitude to rubbish disposal still prevails."
He is well aware that dumping is not exclusive to Connemara, but the film-maker finds it hard to come to terms, even now, with the lack of responsibility towards the environment.
"We may not have complete cars being abandoned any more, but there is every reason to believe that in some areas it is getting worse. Once charges are put on waste disposal, even the price of a tagged disposal bag seems to be too much for some people."
Mr de Buitlear has been returning to film locations first visited several decades ago as part of a biographical exercise for a new television series. Old footage from his first programmes for Amuigh Faoin Speir - when he was chasing Hy Breasail, getting stranded in bad weather on the Blaskets and travelling south to the Azores - will be interspersed with new material.
Entitled A Life in the Wild, it is due to begin on RTE television on November 9th.