Smoke Pall Over Johannesburg

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31521, 8 November 1967, Page 7

Smoke Pall Over Johannesburg

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter) JOHANNESBURG. Airline pilots bringing their aircraft into Johannesburg for daylight landings say that they can always tell when they are nearing the city, not because of its skyscrapers but by its smoke-haze. They can see the haze in the sky long before the outlines of the city appear on the horizon. That is expected to change in the next few years. The beige-coloured cloud is expected ultimately to disappear under the Johannesburg City Council's anti-smoke campaign, the first in South Africa. The council has proclaimed about a square mile of the city a smoke-control zone, in which no visible smoke will be permitted. The proclamation does not mean that the 1000 or so chimneys in the area will cease to belch clouds of smoke. It serves notice that by January 1, 1968, there must be

a switch to the use of smokeless fuels or an adaptation of burning appliances so that non-smokeless fuels contradict their nature and burn smokelessly. Heading the anti-smoke campaign is Mr L. Tucker, Johannesburg’s air pollution control officer, who thinks that people throughout the world face the possibility of extinction by something other than nuclear disaster—“suffocation from our own combustion.” His squad of inspectors will go into action after S (for smokeless) Day at the beginning of next year. The Atmospheric Pollution Prevention Act, passed by Parliament in 1965 and under which Mr Tucker launched his campaign, provides a fine of 8100 for a first offence. Subsequent offences can cost up to $lOOO. The inspectors’ primary aim, however, will not be punitive but educative and persuasive. The squad does not expect to have a great deal to do after January 21. The area chosen as the first smoke control zone has little industry and few private dwellings. The buildings are mainly big stores, buildings with ground-floor shops and offices above, banks, insurance companies, hotels and blocks of flats. Mr Tucker has chosen the easiest part of the city in which to open his campaign. As the zone is extended, so the problem will increase. Domestic fires, not industry, are the major cause of smoke pollution. It has been estimated that coal fires in small residential houses cause 70 per cent of the smoke in South Africa’s atmosphere. The reason is simple. The Republic has enormous reserves of easily-mined and cheap coal—reputedly enough for 600 years—costing $1.50 a ton at pithead. The authorised smokeless fuels, gas, electricity, anthracite and coke, cannot compete against that price. Nevertheless, Johannesburg’s white suburbs will in due course have to forgo their cosy coal fires. A much greater problem is raised by the African townships, where smoke hangs like a thick fog, as the evening meal is being cooked. Low-income Africans cannot find the money for smokeless fuels or smokeless stoves. The official attitude is that smoke control in the townships must await until smokeless fuels become cheaper or low-cost appliances for the smokeless burning of bituminous coal have been developed.