Wading through the rubbish that, like a monster in some second-division disaster movie, frequently threatens to engulf the streets of our capital, it is difficult to place much faith in Dublin Corporation's latest anti-litter campaign. Difficult, but necessary, because the alternative must be despair at present circumstances.
Our daily lives are lived in surroundings that are consistently filthy, yet we seem quite indifferent that such should be the case. A collective blindness seizes not just the people of Dublin but the entire population of the State, allowing us to ignore the plastic bag which has now become such a feature of Irish hedgerows, the superabundance of fast-food cartons which fester but will not rot, the cans and bottles buffeted along a kerb every time so much as a breeze stirs in the air.
Other people
No doubt the majority of us believe ourselves to be honest and law-abiding citizens and imagine that litter is caused by other people whose standards are lower than our own. Yet the truth is that a large percentage of the population casually, if unconsciously, breaks the law daily and adds to the already monstrous problem of rubbish.
There are a large number of offences listed under the 1997 Litter Pollution Act. Some of these are perfectly obvious: bad presentation of refuse; illegal dumping from cars; failure on the part of mobile outlets to provide adequate bins. Other elements of the act may be more surprising. Litter wardens can, for example, prosecute someone found putting flyers on car windscreens or handing out leaflets on the street. Dog owners are responsible for what is quaintly called the "dirt" produced by their pets. And, most unexpectedly of all, anybody who drops a cigarette butt in a public place is committing an offence.
Now, no doubt smokers can - and do - argue that the detritus of their habit is a small and harmless affair, certainly less obviously damaging to the environment than the pollution produced whenever cigarettes are lit. Theoretically, of course, they are correct: the individual butt is a modest, almost self-effacing little thing. Theory, however, has a naughty habit of being disproved by practice and that is certainly the case in this instance.
Cigarette butts are rarely, if ever, found on their own; they shun the solitary state. Instead, butts will be discovered - in fact they usually cannot be avoided - gathered in large numbers. The reasons for this phenomenon are not difficult to discover. Smoking is a sociable activity and its practitioners instinctively tend to cluster together. This has become even more so since the introduction of smoke-free buildings, which have the effect of driving nicotine-lovers on to the outside pavements where the evidence of their habit remains long after they have gone back to their workplaces.
Bus stops
It is difficult now to discover an office building where the kerb closest to the main entrance is not surrounded by cigarette butts. The same is true of any place where more than two or three people are likely to assemble; typically, the ground around bus stops is decorated with smokers' mementoes. One especially bad example of this litter form can be seen in the grounds of Trinity College Dublin, where the square between the new arts building and the old library is absolutely dense with discarded butts, their brown tips now as visible as the green grass they threaten to obscure.
Smokers seem curiously indifferent to or unaware of their residue. They cast aside the butts of their cigarettes without a thought of the mess this can cause and, it would appear, possessed of a belief that they are not producing litter. It is true that butts are organic and will eventually disintegrate, but no faster than any other piece of paper cast aside in a public place. And given the number of smokers in this country and the substantial volume of cigarettes that they collectively consume, barely will the particles of one butt have had time to fall apart than it is replaced by several more. Butts are now as ubiquitous, and as unappealing, as chewing gum; their only advantage is they do not stick to the soles of your shoes.
Illegal activity
However, butt-dropping smokers should be warned that they are engaged in an illegal activity and that they can expect to be punished for their behaviour. According to a spokesman for Dublin Corporation, cigarette butts are among the commonest items found on the capital's streets and more people are being prosecuted for not clearing away evidence of their smoking. To date, the guilty parties have usually been caught tipping the contents of their car ashtrays onto the road or footpaths, but even the discarding of an individual butt could cause the person responsible to receive an on-the-spot fine - currently £50, though the local authority may yet double this figure - or be taken to court where the penalties are far steeper.
Smoking has long been stigmatised as a dirty habit; the public behaviour of its practitioners now stands branded as the same.