No Butts!

4.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Mon 4th Jun 2007

Smoking litter is being targeted during a two-week campaign to stop people dropping cigarette butts in the streets. Enforcement officers are warning smokers found dropping cigarette butts that they risk a £75 fixed-penalty fine.

Fears are growing that the city streets will become awash with butts, cigarette packets and other smoking-related litter following a national ban on smoking in public places from 1 July.

Milton Keynes Council is one of 12 selected from more than 400 local authorities nationally to take part in an anti-smoking litter campaign run by Keep Britain Tidy, part of the environment charity Encams.

Keep Britain Tidy is spending thousands of pounds on posters at prime locations throughout the city such as bus stops and on billboards carrying anti-smoking litter messages. The posters depict a dropped fag end with a camouflage design with "However you disguise it, it's still litter" and a cigarette butt sporting a fishnet stocking with the words "However you tart it up, it's still litter".

Milton Keynes Council is also supporting moves by the Government to give local authorities the right to insist that businesses provide suitable bins outside their premises so that staff can dispose of smoking-related litter responsibly.

Liberal Democrat councillor Douglas McCall, cabinet member for the environment, commented: "I work in central Milton Keynes myself and I've noticed that, as companies gear themselves up for the ban, more and more workers are smoking on the streets. Our relatively clean streets are now getting riddled with cigarette ends. People need to realise that dropping a cigarette end is an offence and they can receive an on-the-spot fine of £75."