Smokers hit hardest in new anti-littering scheme

A STAGGERING 95 per-cent of littering fines in Mid Ulster have been for discarded cigarette butts in the first two months of a pilot scheme, it has emerged.

In January, Mid Ulster District Council signed up to the 12-month pilot WISE (Waste Investigations, Support and Enforcement), and figures for the first nine weeks of the scheme show just five fines handed out for dog fouling and three for fast food litter.

Dungannon DUP councillor, Clement Cuthbertson, said, the programme was “failing to achieve what it set out to do; to reduce dog fouling and fast food waste”.

“I’m in favour of tackling litter in all of its forms, but so far 95 per-cent of the fines handed out have been for cigarette butts. While tossing cigarette butts should certainly be prosecuted, it is not really what WISE were hired in to tackle. That’s disappointing,” Cllr Cuthbertson told the Herald.

“WISE take around 90 per-cent of money gained from fines they issue, so this only becomes of cost to the council and tax payer when people refuse to pay their fines. It will be interesting to keep an eye these statistics when they become available.”

In response, Mid-Ulster Council said, “The primary purpose of the litter enforcement pilot was not around dog fouling or fast food waste specifically, but all litter.

“In terms of the success of the pilot to date, as we have made very clear, any littering is unacceptable and the intention is not only to identify offenders and issue fixed penalty notices, but also to highlight the number of fines being issued as a deterrent to others. The fact that 651 fixed penalty notices were issued in the first nine weeks of operation, compared to 11 in 2020-21, demonstrates that the level of enforcement activity has risen significantly as planned. This is to be welcomed.

“With regard to cigarette littering in particular, we would once again emphasise that discarding a cigarette end is littering and in fact, the NI-wide study by Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful shows that cigarette butts make up the largest proportion of all litter on our streets – over 481,000 butts on any one day. In this context, the proportion of fixed penalty notices for this offence is in line with what we would expect.”

However, speaking at a meeting of Council’s development committee on Wednesday, April 6, Councillor John McNamee also expressed concern that of the 651 fixed penalty notices issued by WISE approximately 88 per-cent of this total was issued in Cookstown (307 fines) and Dungannon (266 fines) alone. The figures also show there just nine fines (1.5 per-cent) in the Torrent area, which includes the large town of Coalisland.

He questioned why such a high number of fines have been recorded in these two towns and claimed the enforcement seems “weighted against the smoker”.

“I would have concerns that the wardens seem to be targeting smokers,” said Cllr McNamee.

“Over 95 per-cent of the total fines are for cigarette butts. I am not justifying any type of littering but it seems things are weighted against the smoker here.

“We have 622 out of 651 fines for cigarette butts and five for dog fouling and three for fast food littering. In our workshops to discuss the option of employing WISE there was very little talk about cigarette litter and a lot more about dog fouling and fast food packing being dumped.

“I would not like to think they are targeting the smoker to get their salaries paid while ignoring the other stuff.”

SDLP group leader, Councillor Malachy Quinn said he is still regularly contacted about dog fouling and other rubbish in his area and said that is what WISE need to focus on.

Council’s assistant director of health, leisure and wellbeing, Kieran Gordon dismissed suggestions that WISE officers are going after easy targets to ensure they get their salary and said the litter wardens are paid an hourly salary with “no performance related incentives”.