THE National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) has pushed back to May, plans to start issuing tickets to people caught littering public places in its anti-litter campaign.

In November last year, the NSWMA said it would be clamping down on littering. The agency also announced that in February 2007 it would begin issuing tickets to people found littering public areas. Ticketed fines would range between $2,000 and $10,000, depending on the offence.

However, Michael Richards, NSWMA community relations manager told the Observer on Wednesday that the implementation of the anti-litter drive would be delayed until May.

“We are just starting to organise an advertising and public relations campaign for it,” Richards said. Meanwhile, he said the issuing of tickets for littering was a pilot project planned for Kingston and St Andrew, but said more work would have to be done in the communities to sensitise residents before the clampdown can be implemented.

The announcement of a crackdown on littering and the issuing of tickets by members of the police force was made last year by then acting executive director Deryke Smith.

However, since that announcement Christopher Powell has replaced Smith as acting executive director of the NSWMA.

The system proposed by the NSWMA is similar to that used for people who commit traffic offences.

When a ticket is issued for littering, the fine would be paid at a prescribed location. After 21 days, if the fine was still unpaid, the person receiving the ticket would then be required to attend court.

Fines would be applied to offences such as the tossing of lunch boxes out of a car window or the discarding of cigarette butts on to the street.

Smith said last year that arrangements were being made for a bill collection agency to act on behalf of the NSWMA in receiving the fines.

“Everything is as announced, the only thing to change is that rather than having a third party collecting the fines we will be doing it in house,” Richards said on Wednesday.