MORE than one in four Scottish councils did not hand out a single fine to people for dropping litter in the past year, The Scotsman can reveal.
About £100 million is spent every year sweeping away rubbish, yet most councils rarely use the powers they have to fine the litter louts responsible.
Only Glasgow is bucking the trend, handing out 5,301 fines in 12 months.
All 32 councils were
asked how many £50 on-the-spot fines they had handed out between April 2007 and April 2008.
Nine had not used the powers to issue fines at all, 14 gave out fewer than ten fines, and almost two-thirds issued fewer than 25.
Edinburgh issued a mere 226, despite getting thousands of complaints about litter and spending £10 million on street cleaning.
In a study by Keep Scotland Beautiful, half of those interviewed admitted they still dropped litter, but they said they would be more inclined to stop if greater use was made of fines.
Donna Nivan, the programme manager for Keep Scotland Beautiful, urged councils to start using their powers to tackle the problem.
"In the last few years, some of the bigger authorities who do have the biggest problems are taking on the powers and do use them,'' she said. "Glasgow is the biggest example. A lot of the other authorities could certainly do more, especially those that are doing nothing."
Most councils spend more than £1 million a year clearing up litter.
Ms Nivan said: "If you are spending millions of pounds clearing up, then that would suggest to me you need to spend more trying to prevent it in the first place. In the long run, that could save money."
In Glasgow, a huge campaign has taken place using some 50 litter wardens to hand out fines to try to clean up the streets; even children have been targeted.
A Glasgow City Council spokesman said: "We are making progress, but we certainly wouldn't claim to be there as yet. We've got to change people's attitudes. It's a cultural change for people because, unfortunately, some habitually drop litter."
Richard Lochhead, the environment secretary, said: "Litter remains an unsightly problem for urban areas, affecting quality of life and community morale. It is also a problem that costs money to deal with.
"Clearly, we all need to do more to reduce the amount of waste in the street, on our roads, on railways lines, in rivers and at other areas where it is an expensive nuisance."
BACKGROUND
LOCAL authorities have the power to hand out on-the-spot fines for dropping anything from a crisp packet to a cigarette butt, under the Environmental Protection (Scotland) Act 1990.
If a culprit does not pay the fine, they can be taken to court, where they can face a fine of up to £2,000 and a criminal record.
They have 14 days to pay the fine, and would then be sent a reminder letter by the council.
If they still continued to fail to pay, the matter would be referred to the procurator-fiscal.
Similar legislation exists allowing fines to be handed out for dog fouling and fly tipping.
The full article contains 539 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
