Smoke lingers round your fingers

[venta]

Last week was Ealing Beer Festival, of which more later. As a member of CAMRA, I turned up at various points to help set up and serve beer. Yesterday was dismantling day, taking apart the stillaging[*] and and packing up everything to be returned to various CAMRA branches and warehouses.

By the time I arrived, someone had already swept the site for big litter - the food plates, abandoned glasses, and crisp packets were all tidied away. However, in a spare couple of hours (between the first lorryload of clobber departing for the warehouse, and the empty lorry returning to be loaded again) I started picking up the little litter. Crown caps, cable ties[**], corners of peanut-packets... and cigarette butts. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of cigarette butts.

As a side effect of this, I now have very sore muscles in the backs of my legs from spending several hours bent double, grubbing about in the dust[***]. I can also attest that either Marlboro cigarettes are more popular than I'd thought, or that Marlboro smokers are worse droppers than other brands. Actually, no: roll-up smokers are the worst, because in addition to dropping butts they also drop filters, papers, and those little plastic tubes that filters come in. I now know that Vogue menthol super-slim are unexpectedly popular in West London, as are chocolate-brown rolling papers.

But mostly what it led me to wonder as I scooped up handful after handful of dead dog ends was this: why do smokers drop fag butts on the ground? I freely concede that the provision for butt-disposal was poor. Apparently there were some sand-filled buckets around but I never noticed one, so let's assume that our beered-up smokers didn't notice them either. At a beer festival one pays a deposit on one's glass and keeps it for the evening, so there are no spare glasses to press into service as ash trays.

So, if you are a smoker, please tell me: if you were at an outdoor event, in a grassy park, and there was no obvious way of disposing of your butts, what would you do? Do you carry a receptacle for disposal? If not, would you drop them on the floor?

If you habitually drop dog ends, is this because you think that someone whose job it is to clean up will be along soon, or because "it's just one fag end", or because you just don't particularly think about it?

Please note: I'm not asking because I want to get sanctimonious about clearing up. I'm genuinely curious. Having never smoked, it's not a problem I've ever had to consider and I don't know what I'd do. Flicking away a fag end as you walk down the road seems to be seen as more socially acceptable than - say - dropping a paper sandwich wrapper, and I'd like to know why.

[*] This word was mostly a new one on me, but describes the metal racking which supports the beer barrels. At Darlington's beer festival they always called it "racking", I think.
[**] Basic rule of assembling temporary outdoor stuff: anything can be attached to anything else using cable ties and creativity.
[***] I should note here: I elected to award myself this job. And I elected not to use a grabby-stick thing for litter-picking, because I find them so clumsy. No blame should be attached to CAMRA for the non-ergonomic nature of my posture while engaged in the task :)

Comments

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

My dad, I am proud to say, carried an old tin for the purpose of butt disposal when no bin was in sight.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Well, I'd like to think that's what I'd do - but realistically I'd also like to think I'm the sort of person who kept their bedroom tidy, and that patently isn't true :)

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

I don't keep my bedroom tidy but I don't drop litter either. Private vs public places, I guess.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ditto - I was just citing bedrooms as an illustration that there is often a gap between what I think I (would) do, and what I do :)

[sarah-orange.livejournal.com]

me too - my bedroom is a pit and I'm not naturally tidy in the house (although am fine at maintaining the status quo if it's a good level of status quo) but I absolutely will not drop litter apart from fruit stones and apple cores in hedges. I've often chased down the road after an errant bit of paper I've dropped. my bag has to be shovelled out regularly as it fills with all sorts of rubbish when no bins are around (train stations...)

[venta.livejournal.com]

On the subject of dropping apple cores, a random bit of trivia: everyone knows banananana skins quickly biodegrade, so most people don't worry about chucking a banana skin in a hedgerow or similar. But a couple of years ago I heard one of the National Park wardens from Snowdonia pleading on the radio with hikers not to do this when up Snowdow - since the very top is regularly snow covered, the banana skins are effectively frozen and are slowly silting up the summit with banana-y badness :)

[lnr]

Actually from doing the Pennine Way I gather that in general it's discouraged even not at height. They may biodegrade, but not very quickly, and in the meantime they attract flies and other vermin, as well as being ugly. And somewhere busy they can be a big problem. It was interesting, as previously I've not worried about such things, though I'd always at least try to tuck them somewhere out of sight.

[d-floorlandmine.livejournal.com]

Also, they can actually be as slippery as comedy legend tells - I not only know someone who has slipped on a banana skin, I know someone who has slipped on two separate banana skins ...

[venta.livejournal.com]

I know someone who has slipped on two separate banana skins ...

Unless you are talking about me, you know two :(

[d-floorlandmine.livejournal.com]

[NumberOfPeopleSlippedOnBananaSkin]++

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Bloody hell yes. Every time we are in the Peaks we pick up some of the bloody things. Bloody banana skins.

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

A non-smoker wonders to what extent people behave differently because (a) they're outdoors and (b) they're likely to have had a few drinks by the time they're smoking.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Obviously the drinking may make the most responsible sandbucket user decide that standing up and walking all the way over there is too much effort.

I was intending to ask about outdoor behaviour specifically, maybe I didn't make that clear.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

It's certainly true that dropping a cigarette butt is more socially acceptable than other sorts of littering. Part of the problem is disposing of a still-smouldering butt safely - the 'open' sort of litterbins clearly are fire risks. Some local councils provide lidded bins with special indentations on the top to stub out the cigarette before depositing it, but this then means touching a dirty bin.

You can get little pouches you can carry around in which cigarettes can be extinguished safely - for a while, some local councils were giving them away free as an anti-littering campaign, but obviously that clashes heads with public health policy, which wants to make it as difficult and inconvenient as possible for people to smoke at all.

I don't smoke when walking down the street - the only place I smoke at all is outside of pubs/clubs. So as long as the venue has provided somewhere to put out cigarettes, there's no need to drop butts.

[secretrebel.livejournal.com]

In most cases I'd utilise something as an ashtray - a beer can is a good option. But there are circumstances where I'd drop a butt without thinking of it. I smoke rollies so the ends are just cardboard and paper. I've dropped them all over at the Reading Festival - although we clear up our campsite of all other litter.

[triskellian]

We clear up the campsite of fag ends, too, cos we chuck them in the fire, so it's not as if we leave the space clean except for lots of fag ends.

I'm trying to train myself out of just dropping the ends (which I only ever do in public, outdoor spaces, never in, say, someone's garden), but it's hard because it's ingrained, and apparently we're still recovering from the big Bin Bombing incident (Hungerford?), so public litter bins are much rarer than they should be. Although public ashtrays are increasing since the pub smoking ban.

I have no good explanation for why just dropping them is ingrained - only that it's what 'people have always done' and, as you say, it's more socially acceptable (in some quarters).

[venta.livejournal.com]

I'm interested in the idea that you think it's OK (or OK-er ;) to drop them in a park than in someone's garden. Is the difference that there might be a paid park-keeper to pick them up, or that the space is bigger, or not something that is easily defined ?

(Again, just curious ;)

[triskellian]

Definitely 'OK-er' rather than 'OK'!

I think because it seems actively, personally rude to drop fag butts in the garden of someone who has kindly invited me round to their house, unless they've explicitly told me it's OK to chuck the ends into the undergrowth.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Well, for people who live in flats with no gardens, the park is their garden and they invite you because it is a public space and the public pays for it.

[triskellian]

Indeed. I'm not defending my behaviour, and I'm working on changing it.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

thank you!

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

only that it's what 'people have always done'

Given the sorts of contexts in which people pick up smoking as a habit during childhood/teenage years it would be quite surprising if the reverse were true.

I somehow can't imagine James Dean assiduously searching for a bin in which to deposit his fag end!

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

Flicking away a fag end as you walk down the road seems to be seen as more socially acceptable than - say - dropping a paper sandwich wrapper, and I'd like to know why.

I think that depends who you talk to!

I don't really see that as any different than e.g. dropping chewing gum, which is to say pretty grim. But I am probably just being sanctimonious there.

[motodraconis.livejournal.com]

I used to smoke roll-ups, (non-smoker now) and no, I'd not drop them ever. I was scrupulous about finding bins.
In the event of a grassy field festival scenario, my ex had one of these, but if no such receptical was available you'd scrub the butt on the ground to be sure it was completely out, then put it back in the tobacco tin or wrap it in a bit of scrap paper and pocket it with the rest of your papers and tobacco until you could find suitable binnage.

I know bods will say such things as, "oh rollies are far more biodegradable" but that's bollocks. We had an open to the elements metal tin for rollie ends in the garden and they'd stick around for months showing no sign of decay but getting prgressively more revolting until finally shunted to the main wheelie bin.

I've been on beaches peppered with butts every square foot, so even littering one butt repulses me.

[secondhand-rick.livejournal.com]

chocolate-brown rolling papers

Mmm... liquorice!

I used to carry a little portable ashtry doodad when I was a smoker.

I'm anti-litter generally.

[lnr]

I've never smoked one, but those liquorice papers do taste nice when eaten.

[john-the-hat.livejournal.com]

To be honest, Id say the following;

In response to

a) why do smokers drop fag butts on the ground?

I would say that the problem is not that smokers are litterbugs, but some litterbugs are smokers. Add to that big litter is oft cleaned away, fag butts tend to accumulate...

b) So, if you are a smoker, please tell me: if you were at an outdoor event, in a grassy park, and there was no obvious way of disposing of your butts, what would you do? Do you carry a receptacle for disposal? If not, would you drop them on the floor?

We have a small tin can for that purpose. If I'm out at a crag and I've not got tin can then it goes in a pocket in the rucksack reserved for that purpose, if I was at an outdoor event with no rucksack or tin can it gets pinched out and goes in my pocket and then goes in a suitable bin when I come across it.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yes of course, I have no data on the number of drinkers at the beer festival who did use the bins or assiduously took their fag ends home with them :)

[fractalgeek.livejournal.com]

I have come to the conclusion that smokers do not consider butts litter. "So you sit on one".

What we need is a public campaign to carry a sealable ashtray, to dispose of it all...

[eviltwinemma.livejournal.com]

At festivals - beer can/empty fag packet once stubbed out on the ground. once full/tiresome, dropped into nearest bin. I do drop on the ground if mid-gig though, sorry.

Urban smoking - into fag bin or stubbed on top/side of regular litter bin and flung in, or dropped into grid if walking and no bin apparent.

When pissed off, feeling especially lazy, or there's just nowhere else to get rid of it immediately apparent - flung dramatically to the ground and ground out with foot in the manner of Sandy in the final segment of Grease.

Sorry.

[floralaetifica.livejournal.com]

I'm resisting the urge to label all smokers inherently inconsiderate bastards. I know it's not true really, it's just that I'm still a little bitter from this recent incident: I was eating at a table outside a Japanese cafe, and bloke asked if he could sit at my table as the place was busy. Naturally, I said yes. Shortly thereafter, bloke asked if it was alright if he smoked. I said I'd rather he didn't. He was astonished and angry and looked at me as if I'd asked him not to talk, or breathe.

I suspect the butt-dropping thing is mostly because the alternative seems embarrassing to them. Given that for large swathes of the UK, being a bit laddish is the only acceptable mode, I suspect that if they were to whip out a nice neat little tin and carefully put their butts in it, they would expect to be mocked for being some variant of posh/fussy/gay/insert other term frequently leveled at people who don't work hard to display how little they care about stuff.

I am a bit biased

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Because they think the dog-ends instantly disappear to the same magical place called Away as the smoke does when they airily blow it over the person standing behind them at the bus stop. And because the whole exercise is seen as some kind of moral battle for their human rights, so in their oxygen-starved minds dropping their foul litter all over the floor equates exactly to Germans sheltering Jewish families during WWII and Medecins Sans Frontieres giving emergency medical treatment to victims of ethnic violence. And because their damn houses are full of bowls of the foul things lying around on surfaces that normal people want to put their drinks and elbows on, so they are just background noise.

Re: I am a bit biased

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Whoa! Reading the comments a surprising number of the smokers I actually know through LJ are really considerate about the litter. I had clearly not been watching. I wish all the others would learn :/

Re: I am a bit biased

[venta.livejournal.com]

I guess it's like all the other things - you notice the people who do it Wrong, rather than the people who do it Right. My personal hatred is bits of gum being left on the pavement (or under train tables, or in other odd corners) - but I assume the vast majority of gum-chewers are nice people who put it in bins. I just don't notice them.

Re: I am a bit biased

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Also because when people I know are smoking they are standing in the smoking area and not next to me :)