Spalding shoppers could have been forgiven for thinking a graffiti artist had been hard at work this week.
Spray-stencilled messages were put on the pavements near drain grids in the town centre, telling smokers not to put their cigarette butts in the drains.
The move is part of a campaign orchestrated by the Keep Britain Tidy group, working with South Holland District Council which gave permission for the signs to be painted.
“More than half of all litter down drains is cigarette butts. Research by Keep Britain Tidy reveals that up to 5,000 butts end up in a single drain.
“With 1,000,000 drains nationwide this presents an unprecedented volume of cigarette butts ending up in UK waterways,” said a spokesman for the charity.
“To tackle the issue, in collaboration with South Holland District Council, Keep Britain Tidy has installed stencils around the drains in Spalding. These interventions have been successfully run in other towns and have proven to reduce cigarette litter by 57 per cent.”
The town has almost three times more cigarette butt litter per meter than the national average – one of the highest rates in the UK.
The stencilling is part of a broader initiative to tackle cigarette litter, including wooden signs in the town centre planters.
