No Butts

Workers forced to go outside for a smoke because of the UK smoke-free law are at risk of being fined up to £80 if they are caught throwing their cigarette ends in the street.

The warning comes as the entrances to Briton's offices and work places are being littered with discarded cigarette ends. Under the legislation, introduced in July last year, it is an offence for anyone to throw cigarette ends on to the road or pavement.

While local councils throughout the country now employ staff trained to impose on-the-spot £50 fines, policing the country's thousands of shops, offices and manufacturing sites, is proving daunting as the butt piles overflow.

A simple solution comes from leading workplace equipment supplier, Welco. Over the last 12 months, the company has supplied hundreds of external cigarette bins to companies eager to encourage smokers not to discard their butts on the floor.

The company sells a specially designed range of external containers to encourage people to dispose of their cigarette ends responsibly. The biggest seller is the cease fire cigarette bin that includes an innovative feature that limits to flow of oxygen to quickly extinguish butts and reduce the risk of fire.

Welco ceo Adrian Reeve reports that even though it is nearly two years since the smoke ban laws came into force; the number of orders for bins is increasing.

He said: "More and more companies are concerned about the mess generated outside their shops offices and factories. It is not particularly pleasant for visitors to have trawl through a carpet of cigarette ends. It is certainly not the image they want to present."

With the second anniversary of the smoking laws in England, which prohibited people from smoking inside offices, pubs, restaurants, every enclosed space and workplace, Welco is reminding employers that they have a responsibility to ensure premises are smoke free, that signs must be displayed, and that workers can be fined if they litter the streets with cigarette ends.