You're more likely to be fined for dropping a cigarette in Wyre than you are in Fylde or Blackpool - This is why...

Despite this, dropped cigarette butts are still the most common form of littering in the country and the three councils that cover the Fylde coast have revealed statistics on how they combat people littering the streets.

For the 2019 calendar year Wyre Council issued 3,425 fixed penalty notices solely for people dropping cigarette butts.

With the fines costing £100, reduced to £80 if paid early, it would have generated at least £274,000 in revenue.

In comparison, Fylde Council only issued four cigarette butt related fines in 2018 (2019 data is not available).

Blackpool Council said it does not categorise litter fines as to the item that was dropped but overall in 2018 it issued 451 fixed penalty notices for all littering.

Wyre Council outsources its litter enforcement officers to District Enforcement

Its litter enforcers are kitted out with body-worn video cameras and footage is used in evidence.

The council says it brought in the enforcer in October 2018 after a public consultation revealed residents were fed up with litter louts and irresponsible dog owners.

For each fine paid, 12.5 per cent of this is passed back to Wyre Council, with the remainder being kept by the company.

A Wyre Council spokesman said: “There is no reason why smokers, who are well aware that their habit means that they will be faced with disposing of their cigarette waste, cannot carry portable ‘butt bins’ with them or create their own by placing some soil or sand in a small tin.”

Blackpool and Fylde’s enforcement teams are council employees however Fylde Council is considering adopting the same approach as Wyre.

A council spokesman said: “We understand Blackpool have and Wyre currently use additional enforcement from outside companies for enviro-crime such as littering which may explain the differences.

“This is a matter being considered at Fylde and an Information Item was presented to the January Operational Management Committee. A further report will be submitted to Committee in due course.”

As part of a survey carried out by environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy, cigarette butts were found on 79 per cent of the 7,200 sites surveyed, making it the most common form of littering.

The charity also found out that 52 per cent of smokers who smoke everyday thought putting a cigarette down the drain was acceptable and 11 per cent of smokers surveyed did not consider cigarette butts to be litter.

The #BinTheButt campaign was launched by the charity to raise awareness amongst smokers and highlight the link between the cigarette butt they drop on the street or down the drain and the impact it has on the marine environment.

As well as plastic, cigarette filters are comprised of thousands of chemical ingredients, including arsenic, lead and nicotine, all of which can leak into marine environments. According to studies, just one cigarette butt per litre of water is highly toxic to fish.

A spokesman for Keep Britain Tidy said: “In addition to being a priority litter issue for local authorities, there are wider impacts which make this a key issue which we have chosen to focus on.

“These include the fact that cigarette butts can easily wash into storm drains and can eventually end up in our seas, becoming marine litter and causing wider environmental damage.

“The extent of this damage is only now beginning to be understood, for example, with new studies demonstrating that micro-plastics used in cigarette filters leach into the water, injuring or killing marine life.”

A Blackpool Council spokesman said: “We’re working with Keep Britain Tidy, local residents and businesses along with visitors to reduce the amount of litter dropped in Blackpool.

“We’ve been busy lately as part of the Keep Blackpool Tidy campaign. Some of the things we’ve been doing is adding more bins to the streets, introducing £80 litter fines, holding litter picking events and raising awareness to encourage more people to stop littering.”