Special vacuum cleaners set to smoke out cigarette ends

Published on Tuesday 28 April 2009 10:33

IT has been one of the most obvious drawbacks of Scotland's smoking ban – city centre streets riddled with cigarette ends.

Now council chiefs have declared war on fag ends with the help of a specialist new vacuum cleaner to sweep them up more effectively.

The 'Green Machines' are set to be deployed from today, alongside an increase in the number of regular brush-and-shovel "barrel beat" workers, at a cost of 900,000.

The machines cost around 12,000 each and are produced by Falkirk-based firm Applied Sweepers, which has supplied the street vacuums to more than 30 countries worldwide.

President Francis Galashan said his firm received a "noticeable increase" in orders from countries and cities shortly after they introduced smoking bans similar to the one introduced in Scotland in 2006.

He added: "We've supplied the machines from Broadway to Buckingham Palace, where we have royal assent from the Queen to clean up outside the palace.

"In America they can be found from San Francisco to Times Square. We even had the voice of actor Tony Randall installed in one of our machines telling people to 'Keep New York Tidy'."

Environment leader Robert Aldridge said that there are no plans to introduce voices to Edinburgh machines yet, but suggested a few candidates.

He said: "Perhaps we could have Susan Boyle singing to them, or the voice of Sean Connery telling people not to drop litter.

He added: "I think the voice of James Bond would be particularly effective. These new machines and barrow beats will allow us to target litter hot-spots.

"Improvements will include a designated overnight street cleaning team in the city centre, the extra vacuum cleaning units and additional staff employed on 'barrow beats' in litter hot-spots."

The city council allocates approximately 10 million per year for litter collection, litter bin emptying, street washing, graffiti removal and other cleaning.

Councillor Aldridge added: "The most recent independent CIMS scores show that the city is still getting cleaner and cleaner but there will always be problem areas that we need to focus on.

"In the city centre there is a problem with cigarette litter."