Cigarette bins removed after thieves use crow bars to steal butts

Cigarette bins installed in Wolverhampton as part of an £11,000 litter campaign have been removed - because people were using crow bars to rip them open and steal the butts from inside.

Council bosses today revealed there had been daily attacks on the city's 46 bins, which also collect chewing gum and cost taxpayers £75 to repair each time they are damaged.

The so-called Smart Bins were installed on lampposts in the city centre in autumn 2007, including Dudley Street, as part of a campaign to stop smokers littering the streets with discarded cigarette ends.

They also encouraged people to stop dropping gum on the floor.

But council chiefs said it had become "uneconomical" to keep them in light of the daily attacks as scavengers were prising them apart to steal tobacco dropped inside.

Steve Woodward, head of Wolverhampton City Council's street scene services, said: "We have had a real problem with people breaking into the smart bins, using considerable force and we assume a crow bar or similar, to get at the discarded cigarettes inside.

"The police were informed. It became almost a daily occurrence and because it costs £75 a time of taxpayers' money to replace the broken doors, it has simply become uneconomical to continue once our stock of spare parts had run out.

"We weren't prepared to order new parts for exactly the same thing to happen again. Therefore we have taken the reluctant decision to remove the smart bins."

He said that the smart bins would be kept in the council stores with the possibility of them being relocated elsewhere in the city if funds ever became available.

It costs the city council around £3 million a year to clear up 4,000 tons of litter and fly-tipped rubbish.

Council spokesman Tim Clark said: "We urge smokers to carry their own container such as a metal sweet tin or cigarette pouch so they can stub out their cigarettes and keep until they are near a bin."

He warned that fixed £50 fines would be handed out to anybody caught dropping cigarettes on the streets.