Ms Colette Murphy:

One incentive that really works with young people is when they are doing it with friends or with other young people. If there are Tidy Towns groups or local environmental action groups that want to get more people involved and want it to be more representative of the community as a whole then reaching out to students' unions or environmental societies on campuses would be a brilliant way to do that. There have been some really good examples of where this has worked. The University of Galway students' union does regular beach clean ups, which is brilliant. Back in September or October the whole town of Maynooth got an award and it was commented at the time that Maynooth is a student town. There is a stereotype that perhaps young people are not as passionate or as involved in local town tidy-up activities but actually Maynooth students are very involved in litter pick-ups after those big campus events. Students are involved in the clean-up afterwards. It is about reaching out to groups of young people that already exist and getting people who already care about environmental action and climate change. This is one of the core things that student unions do care about. There are also the environmental societies that exist on most campuses. That sort of cross-community collaboration in towns or cities where there are colleges or universities will be brilliant to see. There are great examples of it around the country. If anyone is interested in doing it, the local students' union would be more than willing to do some collaboration on it.