A smoker who was spotted throwing a cigarette butt on the ground at Whittlesford Service Station on the outskirts of Cambridge, has been fined £400.
South Cambridgeshire District Council is now urging people not to litter after the smoker was seen by a council officer discarding their smoked cigarette end on the ground. The person was standing beside their car after coming out of the shop.
The offender was given the opportunity to pay a Fixed Penalty Notice (FPN) for £400 rather than attend court for the offence.
Cllr Natalie Warren Green, lead cabinet member for environmental services and waste for South Cambridgeshire District Council, says: “Cigarette butts might be small, but their impact is huge. They pollute our streets, harm wildlife and make our district look uncared for. Tossing cigarette butts on the ground is like saying you don’t care about our community, and in this case, at a service station, it presented a clear fire hazard too. As a Council we are sending a clear message to respect our shared spaces and dispose of waste properly.”
Figures from Keep Britain Tidy show cigarette butts make up more than two-thirds of all littered items, with nearly three million cigarette ends being littered in the UK every day. Government figures show that smoking-related litter costs UK local authorities approximately £40m per year to deal with.
Cigarette butts are made of plastic and therefore are not biodegradable. They can contain chemicals including formaldehyde, nicotine, arsenic, lead, copper, chromium, cadmium, and a variety of polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Over time, they break apart into microplastics and seep toxins into the earth.
