All-year rubbish fire ban?

Press, 15 May 1985, Page 3

All-year rubbish fire ban?

An all-year ban on rubbish fires in clean air zones of Christchurch gained some support from the Canterbury United Council’s air pollution committee yesterday.

The committee referred this possibility to the technical liaison committee for its comments. Rubbish fires are banned in the clean air zones for two months of the year only. The committee’s chairman, Mr G. R. Marriner, said that he was in favour of an all-year ban.

Garden and rubbish fires were one of the worst sources of smell pollution, Mr P. V. Neary said. The chairman of the technical advisory committee, Mr T. Moody, said that the Canterbury Region Clean Air Zone Order would have to be amended to outlaw rubbish fires. Mr I. B. Dawson said that a ban on rubbish fires in Paparua County would probably mean that more residents would dump their rubbish in the country. The committee’s discussion on rubbish fires was prompted by a? letter from a Riccarton Borough councillor in which two obstacles to the Riccarton Borough’s introduction of an all-year ban were highlighted.

These were that it would be out of harmony with other local authority bylaws and that the benefit of the ban could be outweighed by the disadvantages to

residents in the borough. The committee is trying to arrange a meeting in Wellington with the Minister of Health, Dr Bassett, when he returns from overseas, to discuss ways that the Government and the council can work together to eliminate air pollution in the Christchurch area.

In his letter to the committee, Dr Bassett said that a review of test standards for solid-fuel approved heaters had been completed and would be implemented as soon as possible. The target date for this was January, 1986, when the existing method of testing heaters would be withdrawn, he said. "A number of the United Council’s proposals are outside my health portfolio,” Dr Bassett said. “I have drawn the Minister of Energy’s attention to the impact of fuel-pricing policies on air pollution in Christchurch. Dr Bassett said that he had also asked the Minister of Housing to consider replacing open fires and improving space-heating and water-heating systems in Government houses within clean air zones.

The Minister of Transport had been approached regarding the introduction of vehicle emission checks with warrant of fitness tests at testing stations in the clean air zones.

The committee agreed to ask Dr Bassett to consider increasing the size of the Government’s interest free loan to residents installing approved methods of heating in their homes. The Government has agreed to provide $300,000 this year and electrical supply authorities have agreed to make $176,000 available.

Mr Neary said that he would like to discuss with Dr Basset the value of increasing the height of a house chimney to combat pollution from solid-fuel heaters.

“If we are going to accept solid-fuel heating of any kind in the clean air zones we have got to get the chimney height up,” he said. “Unfortunately there is a tendency to keep the chimneys low because a higher chimney upsets the look of the roof-line.” Some serious fires had resulted from the faulty installation of solid fuel heaters, according to the Canterbury branch of the Insurance Courtcil. : In a letter to the committee the council said that it would like to warn residents that they must make sure their solid-fuel heaters were not a fire risk.

“The best way to be sure of this is to see that the installer is qualified to do the job and has obtained a permit from the local authority,” the council said.