What are the little...
 

  You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more

[Closed] What are the little silver cylinders I keep seeing?

48 Posts
38 Users
0 Reactions
476 Views
Posts: 0
Free Member
Topic starter
 

I regularly see small silver (usually) cylinders like the ones my grandmother used for her tonic water spray thing when I was a child.

They are all over the place by the side of the road and often in little clusters.

Do others see them .... what the hell are they for?


 
Posted : 02/06/2020 3:00 pm
Posts: 32265
Full Member
 

Apparently nitrous oxide.

Or CO2 in case your kids bike has a flat


 
Posted : 02/06/2020 3:01 pm
Posts: 41642
Free Member
 

NO2 canisters, used to make whipped cream.

It's all the grannies meeting up during lockdown for cream teas.


 
Posted : 02/06/2020 3:01 pm
Posts: 2819
Full Member
 

Kids breathe it in to get high....its laughing gas. It used to be used as primitive anaesthetic.


 
Posted : 02/06/2020 3:02 pm
Posts: 955
Full Member
 

I have noticed this recently and wondered where they were coming from.


 
Posted : 02/06/2020 3:05 pm
Posts: 0
Free Member
Topic starter
 

Thanks....

They are all over the place .... can't believe there is so much usage...and by the side of the road are they being used whilst driving?


 
Posted : 02/06/2020 3:05 pm
Posts: 5746
Free Member
 

Laughing gas, nox, a legal high, arsenal players love it, I've read it's a very short lived high. The canister is food grade nox for whipped cream. Now I understand why squirting squirty cream from the can straight into your mouth is so nice.


 
Posted : 02/06/2020 3:07 pm
Posts: 1199
Free Member
 

I found a box by the trail last week. It was marked as a whipping refill.

If they had fit my inflator I would have had them away. I didn't realise I could have done some dentistry with them; I might have rethought


 
Posted : 02/06/2020 3:14 pm
Posts: 4420
Free Member
 

can’t believe there is so much usage

they're very cheap, easily accessible, and the hit is fairly mild and lasts about 2 minutes. So they're quite moreish.

Popularly known as 'hippy crack'.

I live in Bristol and sometimes you can barely move without treading on a pile of them. It's ironic really because a lot of the people who leave these lying around the place are the same people who claim to care about environmental issues. But that's probably another argument.


 
Posted : 02/06/2020 3:19 pm
 Spud
Posts: 361
Full Member
 

Couple of hundred strewn around a spot in our local woods over the weekend, along with myriad smashed bottles, cans, other drug paraphernalia.


 
Posted : 02/06/2020 3:19 pm
Posts: 5686
Full Member
 

See also Balloons.

When I used to walk to work from Kings cross to Mornington Cres there would be a pile on every street corner.

See also Top Boy and Dris' stroke from Balloons.


 
Posted : 02/06/2020 3:25 pm
Posts: 4671
Full Member
 

What is the world coming to! Do kids not sniff tipex, gas and glue like when I was a lad (other kids and not a good boy like me).

I'm joking obviously and do not vindicate any drug taking legal or illegal that is damaging to your health.


 
Posted : 02/06/2020 3:30 pm
Posts: 16025
Free Member
 

NO2 canisters, used to make whipped cream.

That's nitrogen dioxide. N2O is nitrous.


 
Posted : 02/06/2020 3:32 pm
Posts: 41642
Free Member
 

hat’s nitrogen dioxide. N2O is nitrous.

As a chemist I really should get this stuff right 🤣


 
Posted : 02/06/2020 3:44 pm
Posts: 12507
Free Member
 

Do kids not sniff tipex, gas and glue like when I was a lad

I thought one huffed glue?


 
Posted : 02/06/2020 3:46 pm
Posts: 16025
Free Member
 

As a chemist I really should get this stuff right 🤣

🙂

I had a vision of the youth sucking on car exhausts...


 
Posted : 02/06/2020 3:50 pm
Posts: 4696
Free Member
 

They're such a big issue round my estate I started to collect them and put them in a big box. When I realised the weight of them I weighed them in and got £5.24 for a stacker box of them. Currently collecting them and when I've got enough to make the trip worthwhile I'll fill the car and do the same again.


 
Posted : 02/06/2020 3:52 pm
Posts: 10474
Free Member
 

They’re roadie droppings.


 
Posted : 02/06/2020 3:52 pm
Posts: 6312
Free Member
 

They're everywhere.

Dirty scruffy bastards


 
Posted : 02/06/2020 6:13 pm
Posts: 32265
Full Member
 

They’re roadie droppings.

That made me chuckle


 
Posted : 02/06/2020 6:47 pm
Posts: 2402
Full Member
 

Yep. Hippy crack. Remember first seeing them all over the floor at a festival in east London a few years ago and momentarily wondering if there was some problem with cyclists locally which warranted that amount of CO2 canisters in such a confined area.


 
Posted : 02/06/2020 6:50 pm
Posts: 15068
Full Member
 

They are generally a bit smaller than CO2 canisters if you look closely...I see them a lot, the N2O that is...

I think it's mostly chavs that use it, dunno why they call it hippy crack.

wondering if there was a problem with cyclists locally which warranted that amount of CO2 canisters in such a confined area.

You're having a really bad puncture day if you can get through that much CO2 hahah!


 
Posted : 02/06/2020 7:59 pm
Posts: 77347
Free Member
 

I'm glad you asked because I've been meaning to start this self same thread for months. I assumed it was some sort of druggie paraphernalia but couldn't quite work out how someone could be trying to get high off SodaStream CO2 bottles.


 
Posted : 02/06/2020 8:08 pm
 TomB
Posts: 1637
Full Member
 

This weekend, all over the Lake District, in beautiful scenery, along with beer bottles, bbqs, deck chairs, soiled nappies. I’ve never seen it this bad, arseholes.


 
Posted : 02/06/2020 8:15 pm
Posts: 15068
Full Member
 

Bit of trivia, I used to run a Nitrous kit on my car, the industrial grade stuff is mixed with a hint of sulfur dioxide IIRC to prevent abuse.


 
Posted : 02/06/2020 8:30 pm
Posts: 8835
Free Member
 

Such a wasteful and frankly rubbish drug. These kids want to get some proper gear in themselves.


 
Posted : 02/06/2020 8:37 pm
 Nick
Posts: 607
Full Member
 

 
Posted : 02/06/2020 8:47 pm
Posts: 33325
Full Member
 

This weekend, all over the Lake District, in beautiful scenery, along with beer bottles, bbqs, deck chairs, soiled nappies. I’ve never seen it this bad, arseholes.

And lots of other places as well. In Lacock by the river a farmer had to remove his herd of cows from their field after hordes of filthy scumbags descended on the riverbank and left masses of crap, I mean that literally, N2O canisters, cans, bottles, bags, just masses of stuff, leaving it all for locals to clear up their shit. One cow suffered cuts to its leg from discarded trash, and the villagers are seething about it, and rightly so.
There are other locations locally as well, a weir outside of Bath has been closed off for exactly the same reason, loads of trash and human excrement that the landowners have to clear up.
Filthy imbeciles.


 
Posted : 02/06/2020 9:29 pm
Posts: 4365
Full Member
 

Saw a guy driving down the road with a balloon in his mouth on Friday evening. He wasn’t on his way to a kids party, Golf R Michael Carrol haircut you know the type


 
Posted : 02/06/2020 9:42 pm
Posts: 8612
Full Member
 

@breninbeener Still is used as an anaesthetic, though we have it on pipeline, or in really big blue cylinders.

DOI anaesthetist


 
Posted : 02/06/2020 10:05 pm
Posts: 3344
Full Member
 

They call them nangs down here.


 
Posted : 03/06/2020 7:19 am
Posts: 0
Free Member
 


 
Posted : 03/06/2020 7:33 am
Posts: 4143
Free Member
 

I cleaned up loads the other day from a local park .... a double horrid job when you factor in Covid.... a wheelie bin was 30 yards away... Scumbags


 
Posted : 03/06/2020 7:41 am
Posts: 14410
Free Member
 

I'm glad someone has cleared this up as thought they were lazy cyclists droppings too.


 
Posted : 03/06/2020 7:49 am
Posts: 2826
Free Member
 

On the plus side the effects wear off very quickly so most users are safe to drive afterwards, unlike alcohol. Also they don't make you violent like alcohol and don't give you cancer like ciggies............


 
Posted : 03/06/2020 7:51 am
Posts: 927
Free Member
 

The parks around were an utter disgrace after the weekend.

I've no idea how people be such ****s.


 
Posted : 03/06/2020 7:54 am
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

I went to an exhibition of work by Gilbert and George based on these when I was last in London, guess it must have been 2014. This video gives a picture of them for anyone unsure what is being talked about...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/entertainment-arts-28339211/hippie-crack-inspires-new-gilbert-and-george-exhibition


 
Posted : 03/06/2020 8:43 am
Posts: 8819
Full Member
 

I have seen a lot of this over here as well. The local homebrew/cooking shops sell the NO2 cylinders and I have seen people come in and buy boxes of the damn things. No shit, the shops have crates of the stuff that they sell on a daily basis.

Hilariously, one youth (not a kid) paid by card, but then refused the receipt because they did not want the evidence of purchase.


 
Posted : 03/06/2020 8:57 am
Posts: 2248
Full Member
 

I think the post lockdown “freedom” plus no foreign travel, no shops, sport or theme parks, leisure centres open means that the countryside is the only option to go “do something”. This with the recent glorious weather means that the co7ntryside is being used by people and families who perhaps aren’t usually likely to do so. People don’t know how to behave. There’s always an element of this behaviour but it’s off the scale relative to normal at the moment. A local nature reserve here has just had to get the police to issue a dispersal order to remove yoofs from a reserve due to damage, another local beauty spot the rangers are now wearing body cams as they’ve had so much abuse from people visiting and disposable bbqs have set hundreds of acres of our moors and forests on fire.


 
Posted : 03/06/2020 8:59 am
Posts: 8835
Free Member
 

That Green Velvet tune was 1995? My goodness, I am old.


 
Posted : 03/06/2020 1:35 pm
Posts: 77347
Free Member
 

People don’t know how to behave.

There might be an element of that but I doubt most of it is simple ignorance. Rather there's a subset of society that simply does not give a **** about anyone but themselves.


 
Posted : 03/06/2020 4:30 pm
Posts: 3783
Free Member
 

When I first saw them at the side of the road I thought they were roadie droppings too. Then I started seeing more and thought no self respecting roadie would carry 10 c02 canisters!

I see them everywhere at the moment, especially outside job centres for some strange reason!

https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/local-news/scumbags-leave-behind-nearly-700-18341377

We picked up 670 illegal high canisters, large canisters of Smartwhip, empty bottles of every alcoholic drink possible, unsmoked and smoked cigarettes, loads of balloons, empty bags of coke/weed and to top it off a dirty Tampax.

So, can you educate me on what they do? Do they insert them into the smartwhip in order to get the gas out or do they just pierce the lid with a nail and inhail?


 
Posted : 03/06/2020 5:06 pm
Posts: 1199
Free Member
 

Also they don’t make you violent like alcohol and don’t give you cancer like ciggies…………

But they can still kill you, just in case your post made them seem completely innocuous.


 
Posted : 03/06/2020 5:10 pm
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

I’m glad someone has cleared this up as thought they were lazy cyclists droppings too.

I initially thought the same until I saw a couple of youths using them as they drove past in their Corsa and chucked them out the window.


 
Posted : 03/06/2020 5:11 pm
Posts: 4420
Free Member
 

So, can you educate me on what they do? Do they insert them into the smartwhip in order to get the gas out

Yes, this - put it into a dispensing thing, then use that to fill a balloon with the gas, then inhale the balloon.

edit - The contents of the balloon, that is


 
Posted : 03/06/2020 5:30 pm
Posts: 4166
Free Member
 

But they can still kill you, just in case your post made them seem completely innocuous.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/adhocs/007534drugrelateddeathsinvolvingnitrousoxide1993to2015

30 people between 1993 and 2016, looks to be 5 or so a year over the most recent few years. Compared to, I dunno, 100 a year or so related to horse-riding, or 7,500 a year related to alcohol.

So not completely innocuous, just very innocuous.

On the other hand I'd be in favour of public lynching for leaving those annoying little bottles around, which probably would be damaging to health.

Without any further googling, I'm assuming it's the same stuff you get when you have "gas and air" as pain relief, like in childbirth or something really painful like when I had my dislocated little toe put back in the socket? That really really hurt, but I had to laugh...


 
Posted : 03/06/2020 5:45 pm
Posts: 3783
Free Member
 

They need to introduce a returns policy. I remember as a kid going looking for Ben shaws lemonade bottles and returning them to the local shop for 10 pence which I spent on penny sweets.

The government is years behind where they should be on recycling and environmental waste. But that's no excuse for dropping their sh1t on the floor.


 
Posted : 03/06/2020 5:49 pm
Posts: 0
Full Member
 

Living in nidderdale AONB litter being left is a real issue and bug bear of mine and other locals. So much has been going on lately too, i. Put it down to the fact that it was only “the idiots” that are driving out to places near me like Brimham rocks to enjoy the scenery but then leaving piles of their rubbish behind! I just don’t get it! This place isn’t going to be a nice place to drive out to if people keep leaving all their rubbish behind. Also I know most of us cyclists are good decent people that don’t leave rubbish too but unfortunately i do see a lot of discarded gel rappers, co2 canisters etc at the side of the road when I ride into work 🙁 and it does give us a bad name 🙁 I’ve also come across bar tape that was chucked into the verge (if your gonna go to the effort of removing it from your bike because it was coming loose, at least put it in your pocket take it home with you. Sadly a lot of people like to complain about cyclists for some reason, lets not give them any other reasons.


 
Posted : 03/06/2020 6:03 pm
Posts: 0
Full Member
 

Same here in nidderdale north York’s mate 🙁 why do some people have no respect for others, the environment and the beautiful surroundings they seem to enjoy coming to, to leave all this shit behind!


 
Posted : 03/06/2020 6:17 pm

6 DAYS LEFT
We are currently at 95% of our target!