I FULLY endorse Heather Causnett's comments regarding the council's bizarre idea to reward citizens who dispose of their rubbish correctly (Letters, July 14).

Whatever next - prizes for drivers who wear their seat belts, or for cyclists who ride on the road, with lights even?

As Heather says, by all means let's have plenty of fines dished out for litter louts. They might act as a deterrent.

Also, if we quadrupled or more the number of street environment officers, their salaries would be more than paid for by the similarly increased number of fines they could issue.

If they wanted one prime site which would generate hundreds of pounds per day on its own, then look no further than outside Stonebow Jobcentre and the passageway through to St Saviourgate.

Here, at the end of every working day, strewn all over the ground are pizza and burger boxes, beer tins and bottles.

Anyone brave enough to try it won't find any shortage of people to issue fines to.

The mornings also bring the added delights of pools of vomit and urine to negotiate. Yards away, the taxi rank sits in its very own ashtray of hundreds of discarded fag ends.

Unless the council gets serious and really tough on this issue, and allocates appropriate resources, I fear that while laudable, its current efforts don't even begin to scratch at the surface of the problem.

Graeme Rudd,

Kerver Lane,

Dunnington,York.

Updated: 08:51 Saturday, July 16, 2005