Burning Issue: Is it acceptable to fine people £50 for dropping a cigarette butt?

Published on Wednesday 14 January 2009 19:26

Yes DONNA NIVEN Programme manager for Keep Scotland Beautiful

IT IS certainly correct to serve a fixed penalty notice for dropping cigarette ends. Cigarette ends and matches, and any other debris associated with smoking are litter, like any other.

Anything that is dropped on our streets and footpaths is classed as litter and certainly cigarette-related debris is part of that.

Smoking-related litter is actually the most common cause of litter on our streets. It is there constantly.

More than 60 per cent of the streets in Scotland have smoking-related litter on them – and the public are very annoyed about it.

It is not excessive to fine people dropping cigarette litter 50, given the scale of the problem.

It costs Scotland more than 100 million a year to clear away litter, and smoking-related litter is part of that.

The public themselves think it's the best way to tackle the problem. Our research highlighted that even litterers were ready to admit that fines were the one thing that would change their behaviour.

More and more of the local authorities are now serving these fixed-penalty notices, so the chance of being fined now is greater than ever.

Cigarette ends don't just disappear overnight. It takes three to five years for them to break down.

There are many other options out there other than dropping them on the ground.

A lot of the bins have been modified so that ashtrays are fitted on them, and there are also personal ashtrays that can be bought. They are very practical and easy to use.

No

NEIL RAFFERTY

Spokesman for Forest: the Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco

OBVIOUSLY, the litter laws have been hijacked to some extent by the health lobby as another way of persecuting smokers.

If you look at some of the statistics across the country, since the extreme anti-smoking lobby reared its head, the amount of fines for dropping litter has gone up.

That has mainly happened by fining smokers, whereas people who drop crisp packets and other types of rubbish are not targeted to the same extent.

It is really being used as an excuse to persecute smokers and to fatten up the council coffers.

We don't think people should go around dropping cigarette butts, but there needs to be a proportionate response to it and everybody needs to be treated in the same way.

If you look at what is happening on the use of littering laws, as well as the issue of smoking in your car, and whether smokers should be able to foster children, more and more there is a blank cheque to treat smokers like scum.

All we are asking is that smokers are treated like human beings.

In the current economic climate, 50 is an enormous amount of money for what is really a very, very minor offence. In fact, "offence" is probably too strong a word.

The authorities need to stop treating people so badly and deliver services in a way that is more respectful.

Smokers can buy a little personal ashtray, which costs about the same as a cigarette lighter. Local authorities could give away these little plastic ashtrays. That would be a much more positive approach.