EVERY day a small army takes to the streets of Canterbury to do battle against the litter louts (Gerry Warren writes).

Armed with their green machines and hand pincers, they patrol the footpaths, picking up the daily mountain of rubbish. It is a district-wide problem, which costs council taxpayers £1 million a year.

Now an experiment by the city council and its contractor Serco, in conjunction with Kentish Gazette newspaper, revealed the scale of the problem.

On Tuesday, for just five hours, the St George's subway was left unswept. The result was an ugly pile of rubbish including fast food wrappers and drink cans.

Contractors say that had they left the subway unattended after the schools turned out, the heap would have been twice as big. The reason, believes council contracts technician Martin Sollis, is that teenagers are the worst offenders.

He said: "We can tell from the kind of stuff that gets dropped and the time of day. We also notice that during the school holidays, there is less litter.

"I think the only answer can be education and we wish that schools would do more, particularly with that age group."

Mr Sollis said the council was also hopeful new legislation which puts more responsibility on fast food outlets for their packaging, would help.

Recently, Serco bought 100 new rubbish bins, many of which will replace those that have been vandalised or stolen.

Now the city council is planning a high profile campaign to clamp down on the litterbugs who spoil the city with their anti-social behaviour.

Council spokesman Rob Davies said: "There is no excuse for dropping litter because there will always be a bin not too far away.

"It is irresponsible and unnecessary and we shall be speaking to police to try to get their support for our civic wardens in the run-up to Christmas."

The council admits that only nine offenders have paid fixed penalty notices for dropping litter since April. But Mr Davies explains that its wardens do not have the same police powers to demand names and addresses of the culprits.

Neither can offenders under the age of 18 be issued with fixed penalty notices.

Mr Davies added: "I think the experiment in the subway showed we do a good job of keeping Canterbury clean. But it requires our constant presence and at busy times people are dropping rubbish faster than we can pick it up."