Cigarette and smoking materials

Ever since smoking in public places was banned on 1st July 2007, the number of cigarette ends dropped in the streets has increased dramatically and they can be found in abundance in Bourne outside premises where staff have got into the habit of popping outside for "a quick drag".

Dozens litter the cobblestones outside the Angel Hotel and in other alcoves, doorways and alleyways along North Street and West Street, and there are many other spots that also have a large number of discarded stubs, their owners paying scant regard to the waste bins available at various vantage points around the town. The car park behind the Corn Exchange is also a favourite place for the crafty smoker with the resulting fag ends scattered over the floor, many also dropped by motorists who have just parked their cars.

But perhaps this unsightly mess may soon come to an end because a special disposal unit has now been erected by South Kesteven District Council where smokers can dump their cigarette ends without littering the pavements. It appears to be a good idea although the council has not yet got it right because they have sited the new unit immediately against the back wall of the Town Hall and staff have complained that when the windows above are opened, as they often are in warm weather, then the fumes will drift in, thus creating the very situation of passive smoking which the latest restrictions were intended to avoid.

We hear that similar installations in Grantham, where the council’s headquarters are situated, have been sited well away from buildings and staff at Bourne have been promised that their unit too will be relocated. It is not being used much yet but perhaps the word will soon get around and the unsightly fag ends now littering our streets will become a thing of the past. In any case, expenditure on these metal monoliths ought to be quite unnecessary because dropping fag ends in the street is an offence under the Environmental Protection Act of 1990 which requires local authorities to keep the streets clean and free from litter and that includes smoking-related materials which, according to a recent survey, are one of the most prevalent types, constituting almost 80% of the rubbish found in public places over the past three years.

As with vandalism, graffiti and criminal damage which also plague our town, the answer therefore is not new initiatives but the enforcement of the old through increased supervision by our law officers. Unfortunately, cigarette bins are recommended as part of the latest awareness campaign from Whitehall and so we may expect to see more of them in the future.

If the scheme is a success, then perhaps the next installation can be a chewing gum disposal unit, thus ending the sticky nuisance that defaces our pavements, leaving them splattered with blobs and stains, a nuisance that costs some local authorities (not ours) £200,000 a year to clean up their streets. In places such as Singapore, the chewing gum menace has been effectively eradicated with a policy of zero tolerance and visitors are so aware of the penalties that it is a common occurrence to swallow your gum on leaving the aircraft rather than be found with it in your possession.

The dropping of chewing gum in this country is also covered by the act, although as with the disposal of fag ends, there is no actual discouragement and the government prefers to jolly people along into accepting their laws rather than enforce them with the penalties available, a method that has been proved to be totally inadequate. In the absence of police supervision therefore, the only other solution is a little more civic pride and a stigmatisation of the culprits which would be far more effective but as this appears to be a non-starter, we must depend on a voluntary code and the use of these disposal units which appear to be a most unlikely solution.

WRITTEN OCTOBER 2007