Already 4,400 GAS fines for cigarette butts in Ostend

In addition to prevention and awareness-raising, fining is an important way to encourage people to throw their butts in the rubbish bin. Because a GAS fine is 60 euros. If you get caught three times, it costs 350 euros. Minors are mediated first. Ostend launched the action plan against illegal dumping, and therefore also against butts, in 2021. And it is having an effect. The butts in the street scene have been reduced.

In the meantime, awareness-raising and prevention are continuing unabated. There are mobile signs. All rubbish bins are now equipped with a butt ring so that you can extinguish your cigarette before throwing it in the rubbish bin, there are butt columns and pocket ashtrays. Mayor Bart Tommelein: “Keeping our city tidy is everyone’s job. We opt for a policy in which we raise awareness and monitor. Rules are useless if you don’t enforce them. The number of findings, almost 4,500 in total since 2021, is unprecedented. First of all, we want to make people realize that butts don’t belong on the ground. The goal is a clean city where it is pleasant for everyone to be.”

In the summer there will be a butts campaign by Mooimakers on the dike and on the beach.