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

[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!