Thetownend.com

http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/8255587.Fines_for_dropping_cigarette_butts_hit___2_400/

Interesting.

If you see a car that throws a fag end out of a car, can you report them to the old bill?

That's a new feature of a car - automated fag butt thrower.  Do you pay extra for that?

Where are smokers supposed to put out fags in the town centre?
I can't remember ever seeing ashtrays anywhere, so what's the alternative?

Seems fucking harsh to me.

Litter I can understand as there are bins everywhere.

Exactly Ginginho. I know when i've been abroad, to major cities at least, there's been ashtrays every few hundred metres and it makes you feel bad dropping them. Besides, I read Allen Carr's easy way to stop smoking about a month ago and since then I've at long last stopped thinking about smoking and know i won't smoke again.

EDIT, change of thought alert: Littering does make me mad though, I hate seeing lazy cunts drop wrappers and things, so why should smokers be exempt? Just carry it to a bin you lazy fucks. :)

Littering is the laziest, most pointless offence and really winds me up.  Just take it home with you or find a bin. 

There are fag bins outside McDonalds by the big TV but I don't know about the other ends of town.

Do the majority of smokers stamp on their fag end when they drop it to put it out? I bet most do. So why not just pick it up once out?

Sippo would you honestly dob someone in for chucking a fag end out of their car? You sad fuck.

what a load of rubbish

He he...No, its just really annoying and pointless. I just annoys me something cronic.

Next person to make a bad pun gets thrown out.

answer: don't fucking smoke.

With the amount of people on community service orders, (and, dare I say it, benefits), there shouldn't be a piece of litter anywhere in any town in the country. It can't be beyond the wit of man to organise this.

Instead of fines the litterers themselves should also be performing this service.

Fair point but surely we should be addressing the cause of litter rather than just following people and picking it up?

Changing behaviour is the key and if takes having to fine people to do it then so be it.

This defines the whole custodial system in this country- pathetic.

Send her out on the streets to pick up litter.

I dont see how there can be any better punishment for littering than having to spend a day of your weekend picking up other peoples litter.  Its fair, no excuses of not being able to pay and you'd think people would learn their lesson

Nev's got a good point, but do both a once. Fine them and the make them do litter cleaning duty for a while.

Agreed, but no one action is going to fix the problem overnight, and if streets were to be litter free it may discourage others from littering in the first place (the 'broken window' approach')

I don't smoke, just making a point.

Saying "don't fucking smoke" doesn't solve the problem and isn't helpful really is it.
There's always going to be smokers, always.

Followed a chav  in some sooped up shitty car the other day chucking there Mcdonalds wrappers out of the window as they drove along
It actually made me feel a bit cross

Yep I always use these to dispose of them, but other areas of town don't have them. Often you have to carefully stub them out on the end of a normal bin and throw them into the bin containing highly flammable material.

um if people didn't smoke = problem solved clever cunt

If people didn't make litter we wouldn't have any issues. It's just not practical to expect people to behave like that but it isn't beyond expectation that they should use bins.

Well then take it up with the tobacco companies who ply the general public with a highly addictive drug.

Yep, all their fault.  It's McDonald's fault that people are fat, and it's drinks companies who are at fault for alcoholism.  This puts me in mind of Homer Simpson's line - "this is everybody's fault but mine".

Anyway, that's off topic.  Littering is bad - and a personal responsibility not to do it is held by each and every one of us.

I rarely get into the town centre but had to go there on Friday.  I could not believe the amount of rubbish in Canal Walk, to pick on people for throwing a cigarette butt seems a bit harsh.  What about the cyclists, skateboarders etc, who cause mayhem as they belt around causing shoppers to scatter!

If it makes anyone feel better im a smoker and quite happily drop my fag butts on the floor.

I also enjoy flicking them out of my car window. Particularly at night time.

Me too. It's a plant wrapped in a bit of paper. Not exactly the same as a plastic bad that takes over 500 years to biodegrade.

Its not though is it.

I do the same tho

fag butts dont biodegrade.

Is that the case? I did not know that.

funny cunt.go shag something

I honestly didn't know. Just checked:

http://www.longwood.edu/cleanva/cigbuttbiodegradable.htm

You still might as well go get a shag tho

Mine do, I smoke rollies, it's the filters that don't biodegrade. But obviously where there's an ashtray, (like the ones on walls outside pubs/restaurants etc) I'll use that. Failing that, stub it and bin it or if there's no bins around, chuck it in the gutter so at least the street sweepers will get it.

Or to earn the money to pay the fine :)

Is it not dangerous to throw them in the bin?

I had to pick a load up from the floor in my garden the other day. yuck

You put them out first, obviously

Ah right.

Think the council are being a bit silly here. Put ashtrays around the place and people will stop dropping fags on the floor

No problem then some other cunt will pick em up. What's the point of street cleaners if they havn't got fuckall to pick up.

Apparently there are 92 bins in the town centre, all with cigarette stubby out things.

One of the people that were fined dropped a 'chocolate bar' wrapper. Now to me that is just lazy.

I'm waiting for some street Nazi to pick on me for throwing a butt away in public.

"It's a cigar butt you brainless prick. It's just leaves, similar to the ones that fall off of the trees in the autumn".

Then you should save money by smoking leaves.

They do not all have astrays

I was just going what the council man said on the radio.

I wasn't littering your honour - in these times of economic uncertainty, I was doing my bit to ensure public sector jobs.

Not sure how to break this to you Sippo but not everything council spokespersons say is actually true. I know, it was a shock to me too

I'm not sure this plea would cut much ice, the Government will be looking to sack the street cleaners and get volunteers to clean the streets...Big Society idea.

There's already a plan in place, to cut dole payments and replace them with food coupons, which will be exchangeable for food parcels provided by charitable groups...no.. really

If the council man lies, then what hope do we have?

Doomed I tell you, we're all doomed....

Clearly something must be done - our only hope is to deploy squads of armed police round the town centre with orders to shoot litter bugs on sight. It's the only language these scum understand