In the first six months of the year, Dublin's litter wardens imposed fines totalling around £475,000, the largest amount to date.
Dublin Corporation's anti-litter officer, Mr Kevin O'Sullivan, said that up to June 18th, 8,557 on-the-spot fines had been made, "and we would expect 9,000 to 9,500 to be the total figure for the first six months".
With each offender having to pay £50, the figure could be as high as £475,000.
During the same period last year 3,736 £25 fines were imposed. For most of that period there were only 14 litter wardens. There are now 20 and Mr O'Sullivan hopes this will rise to 30 before the end of the year.
The individual litterbug is increasingly the focus of the wardens, who can be seen in their Day-Glo jackets patrolling such litter-prone zones as O'Connell Street, Mary Street and Moore Street.
The service was heavily criticised last March after St Patrick's Day revellers left some streets almost impassable because of rubbish. "We were constantly being criticised for targeting easy marks like businesses and homeowners," Mr O'Sullivan said.
Now they are concentrating on personal littering, with anything from a discarded drink can or cigarette packet making one fair game. The extra attention seems to be paying off.
"The lads will tell you that in the areas where they are the bins are filling up. Its having a particularly positive effect we think," Mr O'Sullivan said.
The notional amount of fines may be going up but Mr O'Sullivan said that collection rates were "probably only about 40-50 per cent; we're looking at ways of moving that upwards."
When a warden makes an on the-spot fine, he gets proof of the offender's address (it is an offence to give false information to a litter warden) and the fine is sent out. In the following weeks, reminders are sent out from the corporation's solicitors.
The ultimate recourse for the corporation is the courts. Of last year's 14,151 fines, 600 offenders have been found guilty of non-payment and were recently "named and shamed" in national newspapers.
This has had an immediate effect, according to Mr O'Sullivan. "We noticed a bit of a jump since we started naming and shaming, especially from companies who weren't keen for bad publicity," he said.