SOOT MENACE

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXIV, Issue 11932, 25 January 1936, Page 3

SOOT MENACE

WORLD INQUIRY

A SERIOUS QUESTION

Throat-irritating fogs and sooty atmosphere may soon be things of the past. Start has at last been made to deal with the problem. The Department of Scientific and Industrial Research in England has been asked to undertake an inquiry. The investigations will embrace the whole world to ascertain measures taken in other countries to combat the menace of soot.

“Few people realise how serious is the question of smoke and soot,” an expert said. “It has been estimated that in London pollution of the atmosphere by smoking chimneys costs the population 24s per head. Erosion of buildings, delays and consequent loss during foggy weather, and the injurious effects of health, all contribute to the cost.”

Nearly 20,000,000 tons of coal are burnt in London every year, with a result that nearly 500,000 tons of sulphur are discharged into the atmosphere as sulphuric acid (vitriol). Caused by Coal. About a third of the atmospheric pollution is caused by domestic coal fires, the rest by the industrial use of coal.

Modern super-power stations, designed to replace many small stations, burn as much as 2,000 tons of coal in a day. At the new stations at Battersea and Fulham special grit catchers and flue gas washers have been installed to remove obnoxious materials. That is why, when these stations are going full blast, there is little or no smoke to be seen issuing from the chimneys.

In London there is already a bylaw relating to the emission of black smoke, but it says nothing about other harmful emissions from chimneys, such as acid fumes.

The investigation will probably be the prelude to a wholesale inquiry into the question of factory and domestic fires.