If you love to light up once you hit the slopes then you’ll have to think again at Les Gets – the French resort has banned skiers from smoking until they’re off piste.

While smoking hasn’t been totally prohibited at the resort located south of Lake Geneva, with five smoking areas created near the slopes complete with ashtrays made from recycled skis, it has been outlawed on the slopes. The ban came in on December 17 with the resort near the Swiss border insisting the move has more to do with fighting pollution: more than 3,000 cigarette butts were collected from the slopes during their annual ‘Clean Mountain’ day.

You can still light up in the village, but in the fight against pollution and littering, it will also be forbidden to discard cigarette butts on the ground while smoking there. “We want to showcase our number one asset, which is the clean air of the mountain, which is why thousands of visitors visit us every year," was the message from Benjamin Mugnier, who is in charge of the project.

The move is the first made by a European resort following on from tobacco-free areas found in ski resorts in North America, Japan and New Zealand.