Ken stamps on butts

Ken Livingstone is spearheading a campaign to hand out thousands of specially designed pouches to stop smokers dropping their cigarettes in the street.

The pouches allow workers on smoking breaks to store their lit cigarette ends safely until they can be emptied into a bin.

Every year 2,700 tonnes of cigarette litter is dropped onto the capital's streets - the equivalent of 6,750 million cigarette ends.

Mr Livingstone said: "There is much discussion about the move towards a smoking ban and if this were to come into force, the problem of people congregating outside offices, restaurants and pubs to smoke and drop their cigarette butts will only continue and get worse until the problem is tacked now."

Around 15,000 of the puches, which are produced by Stubbi & Co., are to be handed out throughout the city.