DIRT OF CITIES

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 147, 19 December 1933, Page 3

DIRT OF CITIES

Soot enough to cover Hyde Park to a depth of lOin falls in London in one year; yet London is not Britain's smokiest city. Approximately two and a. half million tons of soot, it is calculated, escapes annually into the atmosphere from domestic fireplaces^ and half a million ton,s from industrial chimneys.1 It is impossible to estimate the loss the smoke nuisance means, but in Manchester it makes the-- cost of household washing', for instance, over £290,000 a year. If two million people travelling into London are held up for one hour by fog, of which soot is a main ingredient, the loss of working1 time is estimated to be £150,000. The Office of Works spends £1,750,000 a yeav in looking after Government buildings, Royal - palaces, and Houses of Parliament, but of that large sum 30 or 40 per cent, would be saved were the atmosphere acid-free and smokeless. Altogether it is safe to say that (ho'smoke menace costs the country £40,000,000 a year hi waste and damage. Luckily the increasing use of electricity and gas has greatly decreased the nuisance, and in London during the past 15 years the. ..fall of soot has been reduced by half.