Giveaway to Stop Smoking Litter

The Safer Harlow Partnership will be giving away free “stubbi pouches” to encourage people not to drop cigarette related litter around the town.

A survey published by ENCAMS (covering April 06 – March 07) highlighted smoking related items as the top incidence of litter in the town.

To help combat the problem, council enforcement offers will be visiting shopping areas around the town over the next three weeks to give away 500 free pouches. Pouches will also be available at the Contact Harlow reception desk in the Civic Centre. The pouches act as pocket ashtrays and hold up to five cigarette ends at a time. They are a useful way to extinguish them without littering.

Smoking related litter is a problem in most areas of the country as it is the hardest type of litter to sweep up. Dropping matches or cigarette ends is an offence that carries a fixed penalty of £50 as a minimum. Prosecutions can result in fines of up to £2,500. Harlow Council will be working with the Police over the coming months to target litter-bugs and clean up the town.

Executive Councillor for Environment and Community Cllr Eleanor Macy says: “The ENCAMS survey was carried out prior to the 1 July smoking ban so it is too early to say if this has increased the problem.”

“ However we can be sure that smoking related items were already the biggest source of litter in Harlow and we have been working to do something about it with extra bins and the stubbi pouches.

“The message is simple – bin your matches and cigarette ends properly or risk a fine. People in Harlow don’t want the litter and don’t want to keeping pay for it to be cleaned up.”

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