People who are caught carrying out this sort of anti-social behaviour will be given a fixed penalty notice of £50. If they refuse to pay they will be prosecuted and face fines of up to £1,000 if found guilty and they will be named and shamed on the council's website.

The enforcement will be carried out by street crime wardens and plain-clothes council staff, supported by Gold Zone police.

Some successful pilot operations have been carried out using on-the-spot fines but the system will come into force in full in the coming weeks.

"It will be a 24 hour a day operation, seven days a week, " said Lib Dem Councillor Mike Storey, Leader of the City Council, "because, unfortunately, people drop litter at all times of the day and night and we have to combat that.

"Along with the vast majority of people, in the city, we are determined that Liverpool will be clean. litter and graffiti free. We will not allow the selfish minority to ruin our environment so we are going to have zero tolerance for this sort of behaviour.

"We need to change the culture of those people who think it is OK to drop their litter - whether it is a cigarette end or their takeaway containers - on our pavements and if it means hitting them in the pockets as soon as they have offended then that is what we will do.

"And people should be aware that just because they can't see a crime warden in a high visibility jacket they will get away with dropping litter. There are other officers who are specially trained who can issue penalties and will take action against offenders."

Councillor Marilyn Fielding, Lib Dem Executive Member for Neighbourhood Services, added; "This is something which is not confined to the city centre. We want to have safe, clean and attractive neighbourhoods.

"One of the commonest complaints we get from local communities is about environmental issues- litter, fly-tipping and dog fouling. We are determined to tackle that throughout the city."

The latest moves follow successful campaigns to tackle environmental crime last year which included a number of Action Days in which areas of the city were targeted for action. This resulted in several successful prosecutions for dropping litter and for allowing dogs to foul.

The city council also distributed 15,000 portable ashtrays in its Butts Out campaign to help deal with the problem of smoking-related litter.

There are about 1300 litter bins in the city and a planning policy has also been adopted that new takeaway food shops must provide litter bins.