Smoke lingers round your fingers
Jul. 12th, 2010 03:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ventaLast 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 :)
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 :)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-07-12 03:51 pm (UTC)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.