There are few things more infuriating than seeing someone casually tossing litter to the ground.

More than two million pieces of litter are dropped on our country’s streets every day – and not just by careless youths.

In Bradford city centre, I recently came across a middle-aged man throwing a plastic bottle into bushes as if it was something he was perfectly entitled to do.

Ten minutes later, in Centenary Square, a young woman flicked a greasy burger carton on to the ground, despite being a few feet from a bin. There is something unpleasant about seeing a mother throwing litter in front of her toddler’s pushchair.

Even a police officer has been caught in the act. The Telegraph & Argus recently reported that a uniformed police officer had been captured on CCTV dropping rubbish at a spot blighted by fly tippers.

He was filmed by a security camera at a nearby business discarding food in a plastic bag. Police are investigating, and said a member of staff had been given a fixed penalty notice for the littering offence.

Now campaigners are taking drastic measures to tackle the problem of litter – by installing ‘talking’ and ‘singing’ bins.

From next month, there will be 25 of them around central London and five in Liverpool, with Manchester and Birmingham earmarked for the next batch.

It’s part of a Keep Britain Tidy campaign called Love Where You Live, aimed at changing people’s attitudes and behaviour towards litter.

The bins, which look normal, but emit pre-recorded songs and messages, have been a success elsewhere in Europe.

In Sweden, a talking bin is said to have taken three times more rubbish than a normal one nearby.

Celebrities such as Amanda Holden and ‘the voice of X Factor’, Peter Dickson, are recording bin messages.

In Liverpool, people will be thanked ‘very, very much’ for disposing of their litter properly, with bins singing a version of Thank You Very Much by comedy pop act The Scaffold.

Just a novelty, or could singing bins make a difference?

“Anything that will remind people that dropping litter is unacceptable must help, although singing bins should be part of a much wider range of approaches,” says T&A environment columnist Keith Thomson.

“These should involve less packaging, deposits back on bottles and drinks cans, litter-free enterprise zones with rewards to local communities when they reach a certain standard, and positive inputs in schools, from a young age.

“There is a need for continued enforcement and penalties and this should be paid for by a levy on the supermarkets.”

Bradford Council environmental health manager Carol Morgan is part of an 11-strong team of enforcement officers working with schools and businesses to tackle litter problems, as well as serving penalties on the streets.

“Singing bins are a novelty, but they have been shown to attract more litter. Anything that encourages people to dispose of litter responsibly has to be welcomed,” says Carol.

Singing litter bins would no doubt be particularly appealing to children. Carol says a fundamental part of getting the message across starts in schools.

“We get schools to come up with ideas about recycling and litter disposal. We also target restaurants and other businesses, explaining what their responsibilities are,” she says. “We like to approach it in a comprehensive way, as well as using enforcement.”

With people casually dropping litter in full view of anyone passing, it would seem that enforcing on-the-spot fines could sometimes be difficult.

“We’re quite canny about it,” says Carol. “Street wardens are our eyes and ears, and we target certain hotspots, including the city centre, the West End area, Leeds Road and Shipley – areas where there are a lot of restaurants and some of the main corridors into the city. There are bins every few metres in these areas.

“We don’t leave it to chance, and if we see someone dropping litter, we’ll serve them a fixed penalty notice of £75.”

Adds Carol: “Some people think of dropping litter as a victimless crime, but that’s not the case. This is an environment we all share, and we all have a responsibility towards. When someone drops litter, it means someone else, funded by the tax-payer, has to clear it up.”