UKC

I saw a BBC report on councils "milking litterers" by fining them via an incentivised third party

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-21200058

I'm not sure I really have a problem with this (and I'm a smoker), to be honest though, at least these areas have regular street cleaning, I think the worst problem for littering is louts throughing McDonalds etc wrappers out of their car windows, that and what I can only assume are dodgy builders fly tipping out in the country.

Thoughts?

In reply to balmybaldwin: In theory, I don't have any problem with this, but I've seen a few other stories that suggest XFOR may not have the best supervision/management/training procedures ( a couple of Welsh examples)for their ex-military staff.

In reply to balmybaldwin:
not entirely against the idea, people should really know not to drop litter, but I really don't like private firms sending out their little private police forces.
They claim they'll issue enough fines to cover their expenses, what happens on a slow day?
And if there's so much money to be made, why are councils outsourcing it?
If they are currently making money taking £35 of the £80, why don't they cut out the middlemen and put the whole lot to use in the council coffers.

In reply to balmybaldwin:

Fines for dropping a cigarette butt does seem OTT. Most people are not aware if it's an offence. I'd expect a long public information push first, at least..

I would advocate shooting fly-tippers, however. It makes me so angry to see the rubbish left by the side of the road. A completely deliberate, lazy and selfish act that costs the whole community.

Car litterers are little better. Certainly fine them.

Cigarette butts are litter and should be fined. They are hard for the sweepers to pick up and smell really bad. I'm a smoker and it annoys me when you see someone stand next to a bin to smoke, step on the butt and walk off. These fines are issued in town centres which have bins every hundred metres. The only way to change the thoughts about littering is to fine them.

I agree that there's no reason to outsource it. We have council spending loads of money on projects which seem to be a waste of money but when something comes along to generate some more to spend a middle man takes a cut.

In reply to fairweatherclimber:

that's ridiculous! They know, they just don't care!

and as above, I've often seen smokers lob their butts on the floor right next to bins. Idiots.

I've always liked the idea of some how charging the companies providing the products a 'tax'.

Ok, going to be a bit hard for rollies, say - but divvying up who pays for the fast food wrapper litter collection between McDonalds and Burger King might get them to encourage their customers to be cleaner.

Of course, not really financially viable and too hard to implement in the real world, I appreciate.