Hidden History: Cigarette Butts
A VINTAGE RIZLA+ AD. SOURCE: WIKIMDIA COMMONS
Cigarette butts are as common as crows and doubtless we ever take a moment to wonder why or how they became so prolific. Nowadays, the carcinogenic and other adverse health effects of smoking are widely known thanks in part to anti-tobacco advertising and programming. When we were preparing for our latest exhibit, Mackin House Deconstructed: The Hidden History of Everyday Objects, we noticed a substantial number of tobacco paraphernalia in our collection*. We dug deep into the history and origins of tobacco, and if you have ever wondered where wayside cigarette butts got their start, it is best to begin with their roots.
Tobacco is derived from the nicotine-rich leaves of the plant Nicotiana tabacum. The plant is considered an invasive species and a weed, with its flowerheads containing upwards of 150,000 tiny seeds. Tobacco farmers have employed the tactic of removing these flowerheads so the plants can funnel more of their energy into growing leaves. In Canada, tobacco is harvested almost exclusively in southern Ontario, and while tobacco plants today are harvested using machinery, they were picked by hand in the past. Once picked, leaves would be tied to sticks that would be dried in kilns for a week. This dried tobacco would be ready for buyers, and eventually rolled in paper and smoked.
Two of the oldest companies in the tobacco industry are manufacturers of tobacco rolling papers, Rizla+ and Zig-Zag, both established in France. The origins of Zig-Zag date back almost 150 years and it derives its name from the interweaving, zig-zag method used in packaging its famous rolling papers. Zig-Zag’s logo is modelled after the zouave soldiers, a French North African infantry regiment from the 19th century who wore colourful uniforms, including a red hat. Zig-Zag’s website claims it was a zouave soldier who improvised a smoking medium with rolled paper when his smoking pipe was shattered in battle. Rizla+, on the other hand, boasts a history that began as far back as 1532 with a man named Pierre Lacroix who made high quality paper. Rizla+ rebranded from the Lacroix Rolling Paper Company in 1886 after they started using rice in their rolling paper formula. Both Rizla+ and Zig-Zag still exist to this day.
DIFFERENT TYPES OF ROLLING PAPERS ON DISPLAY IN OUR PARLOUR DURING MACKIN HOUSE DECONSTRUCTED
While rolling papers are one medium of tobacco consumption, the most common method of smoking is manufactured cigarettes which, unlike rolling papers, have filters. The speckled, light brown design of present-day cigarette filters is an homage to their beginnings in cork. Cork is carefully harvested from the bark of the cork oak tree found in Spain, Portugal, and parts of Northern Africa. Paper filters replaced cork in 1925 when Hungarian inventor Boris Aivaz created a crepe paper filter. Forty years later, the negative health effects of smoking became common knowledge and cigarette filters became the norm, despite little to no evidence of any benefits to their use. In fact, paper filters of the 1950s were made with a colour-changing additive to provide the illusion that the filters were effective. Cigarette filters today can be made of cotton, wood fibers, paper, and/or activated charcoal, and they are usually treated with cellulose acetate as well as a host of other chemicals.
As you can see, there is more to discarded cigarette butts than meets the eye. Come visit Mackin House to learn more about the tobacco harvesting process and peruse our other tobacco-related artifacts. Our exhibit, Mackin House Deconstructed: The Hidden History of Everyday Objects, will be on display until June 2021. The Coquitlam Heritage Society is taking social distancing, sanitization, and contact tracing measures to ensure your safety at the museum.
*Coquitlam Heritage does not condone smoking or tobacco use in any form.