The smoking ban will lead to a huge rise in the amount of street litter, according to a campaign group.

Keep Britain Tidy claim 80 per cent of Sussex streets are already littered with cigarette butts and say the problem is set to soar once the ban is introduced on July 1.

Businesses have been warned they face fines if they fail to keep the areas outside their premises clean and tidy.

Just a few cigarette butts may lead to prosecution.

Local authorities will be able to take action against businesses if there are just two to five butts in a ten metre radius around their premises.

Gavin Stewart, of Brighton Business Forum, said many licensed premises will be installing ash trays outside their premises for customers.

He said: "Our role is to help businesses and advise them on what they need to do and bring them up to date.

"They already face fines if there is illegal dumping on their property, this is just an extension of that."

Businesses are being warned to check if they need planning permission before installing cigarette bins outside their premises.

Councils can issue Street Litter Control Notices which force business owners to clean up.

Keep Britain Tidy campaigners are urging smokers to play their part and use ashtrays instead of dumping them on the floor.

They want smokers to carry portable ashtrays to stub out, and carry, cigarette butts in.

If they drop them on the floor they face a £75 spot fine.

Louise Arnold, Keep Britain Tidy's Executive Director said: "It would be foolish to think that when people have to smoke outside, they won't drop their cigarette ends on the floor.

"I really hope businesses and smokers, who at the moment do not bin their butts, take heed of our message and that the public do not find themselves having to wade through a sea of cig ends just to enter a pub, restaurant or their workplace."

Posters have been put up on bus stops and billboards to remind people to dispose of cigarette butts responsibly.

David Morgan is manager of The Jubilee Oak pub in Crawley.

He said: "We applied for a pavement license to have tables outside but this was refused because the pavement is too narrow.

"We will be getting canopies out the front and little heaters with a push button and wall mounted ash trays. These will be fitted as soon as possible."

In Worthing pubs are also installing smoking bins outside and in some cases awnings for when the weather is bad.

Ian Morris, manager of The Vintners Parrot, said: "We are getting the staff ready by stopping them smoking in the building on June 10.

"It's popular with the non-smokers but the smokers don't like it so much.

"We're starting to get customers in who wouldn't normally come in because of the smoke. I think it's going to be good for business."

A spokeswoman for Eastbourne Borough Council said some pubs and clubs would be putting ashtrays outside their premises and the council would be making sure patrons were being made aware they couldn't smoke indoors.

She said anyone not complying would be fined.

Tesco is selling Ashcans - new portable ashtrays. It mimics the size and shape of a cigarette and fits into a cigarette packet.

It is heat resistant, stores up to three stubs at a time without omitting any stench.

* An estimated 122 tonnes of cigarette ends, matchsticks and other bits of smoking litter are dropped every day * It can take between 18 months and 500 years for a stub to decompose * 40 per cent of litter plaguing our streets is smoking related * Litterers of fag ends have, in the past, argued that they are not actually litter * The Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005, specifically listed littered cigarettes, cigars and smoking products as being litter * Town and city centres suffer most from cigarette ends, second is local shopping and business areas (86 per cent) * In 2005, 47 per cent of smokers who work said that there was an ashtray or cigarette bin provided in the smoking area * 61 per cent of people in Ireland believe that a ban on smoking in pubs has lead to a rise in cigarette rubbish * It is an offence to drop litter on public or private land under the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act (2005)