Cigarettes epitomise the individual person’s single-use and singular-use mindset.

A thought today for Daniel McConnell of this parish, who issued a wake-up call to his native city last week in these pages.

He pointed out just how filthy Dublin is these days, a dose of tough love taken in good spirit by inhabitants of our capital city. Dan is now sporting a Groucho Marx disguise and hiding out in an isolated, rarely-visited location.

The Dáil gym. I didn’t tell you that, though.

The reflexive move here would be a faux-sorrowful shaking of the head, a murmur of fake sympathy for the denizens of Baile Átha Cliath as the city’s hygiene challenges are trumpeted for all the world to hear.

Dear dirty Dublin indeed. Sorry about that.

Unfortunately, Cork doesn’t fare too well in litter rankings either — not well enough to be looking down one’s nose at other areas, certainly.

In the Irish Business Against Litter’s (IBAL) last national survey, Fermoy got top marks, as one of only eight towns in Ireland to exceed European cleanliness norms, but three areas of Cork City were deemed to be “littered” — the city centre, the northside, and Mahon — though IBAL noted that Cork’s northside had improved from previous leagues.

For context, “littered” is the third-worst category, exceeded only by “heavily littered” and “litter blackspot”. Only one place in Ireland received that designation in one of last year’s surveys — Dublin’s north inner city.

Invoking European cities and towns for comparisons can also be seen as an almost automatic response: look, the Italians/Germans/French/Spanish can do this so much better than us, what’s our problem ?

However, when cities get ranked for their cleanliness, not all our continental cousins get top marks either. A Time Out reader survey just last month named Rome as the dirtiest city in the world, with Glasgow in third place. (They were split by New York, where some reports put the rat population, feeding on rubbish in the streets, at its highest in over 10 years. Enjoy your nightmares.)

The city top ranked for cleanliness, by the way, was Stockholm. The Swedish capital benefits from some unlikely help when it comes to keeping the streets spick and span.

Corvid Cleaning in the Södertälje part of the city trains wild crows to pick up litter: the birds learn to pick up cigarette butts by placing them into a machine which then dispenses food to them as a reward.

“They’re wild birds taking part on a voluntary basis,” said Christian Günther-Hanssen of Corvid Cleaning to Swedish media outlets (I particularly like that ‘voluntary’, just in case you thought the birds were being coerced).

They are easier to teach and there is also a higher chance of them learning from each other. At the same time, there’s a lower risk of them mistakenly eating any rubbish.”

Those cigarette butts are an issue for Sweden: over a billion of them are tossed away on the streets each year, and they represent 62% of all litter in the country, according to the Keep Sweden Tidy Foundation.

Focusing on a particular item of rubbish makes sense. While there are fewer and fewer of the ubiquitous light-blue disposable masks to be seen on Irish streets since lockdown ended, the indirect consequence of another pandemic habit is all too obvious. 

When the IBAL survey results mentioned above were released, spokesman Conor Horgan pointed out: “The findings bear out the need for action on coffee cups.

“We must disincentivise the use of paper cups — even compostable or recyclable ones — as too many of them are ending up on the ground. In the light of our survey, the Government move towards a levy makes a lot of sense.”

If you developed a taste for takeaway coffee as you strolled in your 5K zone during lockdown, you may need to revisit your strategies for cup disposal if you didn’t buy a keep-cup along the way. Otherwise you’re a selfish pig, and there is no way of sugarcoating that message, I’m afraid.

And this is the crux of the matter. You’ll notice that three of the crucial ingredients when it comes to rubbish are the embodiment of personal choice. Cigarettes, masks, coffee cups: all of those epitomise the individual person’s single-use and singular-use mindset. The resulting litter accumulates not from a collective endeavour, but from the choices and decisions of lone traders.

In that sense, while IBAL’s support for a coffee cup levy is admirable, such measures are doomed to failure because the people tossing coffee cups — or face masks, or cigarette butts — aren’t about to be swayed into changing their behaviour by a couple of cents added to the cost at source. They’ve made their choice, and it’s one in which your choices and mine don’t count for anything.

This is the ultimate tension in urban life, and one that reveals itself in dozens of different ways. The tension between the majority on one hand, the people who understand that living in close proximity with thousands of others means ongoing compromises, an awareness that the world is not constructed entirely for the benefit of one specific individual.

And, on the other hand, there are those who believe the entire world is constructed and organised for their benefit.

Which brings me back to Dan’s piece from last week. He referred to Dublin City Council chief executive boss Owen Keegan’s recent comments on the litter-strewn capital: "He [Keegan] recently told councillors from the North Central Area Committee, the system to tackle littering 'doesn’t work'.

"He said: 'The reality is the system of enforcement doesn’t work.' 

He also said he isn’t comfortable sending wardens into litter black spots as they are at risk of being attacked."

We’ll park for now any attempt to understand the mindset of a person who’d attack anyone trying to clean up the area where that person lives, and acknowledge the bleak reality of what Keegan says about the system of enforcement.

It doesn’t work, and it doesn’t work because people won’t take responsibility for their own actions in creating litter.

Scant consolation though it may be, the capital of France is also undergoing a crisis of confidence for the same reasons. Well-known French journalist Stéphane Bern recently announced he was moving out of Paris because it had become dirty and violent, describing it as “a rubbish bin”.

“What has happened to the City of Light?” Bern told the Guardian , though significantly enough he didn’t criticise city mayor Ann Hidalgo unreservedly, as many of his fellow Parisians have.

“She certainly has her share of responsibility but she doesn’t deserve all the attacks aimed at her.

Her job is far from easy, and, as far as I’m aware, she’s not the one making it dirty, nor are the refuse collectors at fault. The biggest culprits are first and foremost the people.”

The only consolation I offer is the entertainment that awaits when Corvid Cleaning lands its crows in Dublin, and they take on indigenous seagulls for supremacy. 

And for butts, masks, and coffee cups.

Read MoreLitter blitz at Cork blackspot unearths drug needles and 30-year-old drinks cans

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