Sudbury’s cigarette bins vandalised

Sudbury town wardens Lewis Perry and Bradley Smith with the cigarette butts collected in the special bins (Image: Archant)

The bins have been helping to keep the town tidy since they were installed in 2016 following a three-month trial.

However, the town’s wardens have noticed they keep being broken into, with the cigarette butts taken from inside.

There are now eight bins in the town waiting to be repaired.

Community warden supervisor Bradley Smith said although fixing the bins is relatively inexpensive, the cost mounts up with each bin that is broken.

He said: “We noticed they started getting broken in September last year.

“Sometimes they just break the smoke bins and take all the dog ends.

“Each bin has two metal trays inside to collect the dog ends and sometimes they take the whole tray.

“If they break the bin it costs about £1.20 to repair but if they take the tray, it can cost £12 a times to fix. “It’s just annoying - we’ve got eight of them that are now broken in the town.

“It’s not big money but it is still often more than £10 a time to repair them.”

The Community Warden team tweeted that they would “won’t be beaten” by the vandal.

The tweet read: “We won’t be beaten by a mindless vandal who keeps forcing open the smoke bins in town causing them not to lock, these bins are working and reducing the amount of cigarette ends on the floor.”

Mr Smith said the bins had made a huge difference to the town since they were installed.

He said that in the three-month trial of the scheme, the smoke bins had collected enough butts to fill a 120-litre wheelie bin.

“The positives far outweigh the negatives with these bins,” he said.

Mr Smith added that the police had been informed.