THE SMOKE NUISANCE

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 80, 28 December 1929, Page 22

THE SMOKE NUISANCE

MANCHESTER’S HEAVY LAUNDRY BILL

Aiderman Will Meßand, speaking recently at the Smoke Abatement Exhibition in the City Hall, Manchester, expressed some surprise at the general apathy with which the smoke problem was regarded, although so much was known about the ill-effects of a smoke-polluted atmosphere, and about the wastage and the expenditure that was incurred by the general neglect to take precautions to use our fuel resources sanely and economically. “I can imagine an intelligent stranger from some other sphere,” he said, “coming to the industrial districts of England and being amazed' to find that shrewd, practical, business men allow the ravages of smoke to continue as if they do not realise the enormous loss which is caused.” Smoke, he went on to point out, did great damage to buildings, to goods in process of manufac ture aud in stock, to vegetation, and to health. The damage to health was incalculable, and it seemed absurd to spend large sums on hospitals for treating diseases, and do so little to prevent the smoke which caused so much disease. To illustrate the extent of the damage done by smoke to vegetation, Aiderman Meiland quoted the result of observations made in the course of a vear in twelve of the more centrally situated parks of Manchester. In these parks, he said, the cost of replacing herbaceous plants, shrubs, bushes, and trees killed by smoke amounted in the period to £l4OO. Xnother striking figure which be quoted concerned what may. be called Manchester’s heavy laundry bill, which is due to smoke. It had been esti mated—and the estimate, he declared, was a very conservative one that if the .atmosphere of Manchester were as clean as that of Harrogate, the city would spend annually about.. £242.000 less on washing clothes than it is now obliged to do. This figure comprised almost entirely the cost of soap and coal.