ATMOSPHERIC POLLUTION

Evening Star, Issue 21508, 5 September 1933, Page 2

ATMOSPHERIC POLLUTION

EFFECTS OF SMOKE ON BUILDINGS Lamentations wore heal'd at the summer'meeting in London of the National Smoko Abatement Society about the damage caused to buildings and monuments by atmospheric pollution. Sir Frank . Baines described atmospheric pollution as the destructive canker of the ago and one which will finally render unintelligible the readings of history in all national monuments. He estimated the cost of making good the results of atmospheric impurities to buildings throughout the country to be £55,000,000 at a minimum. The actual damage, he was convinced, if carefully calculated from all sources, would probably be found to be far in excess of that figure. Was it not amazing, therefore,’ lie asked, that methods of prevention were attacked on the score of the cost of their institution? After speaking of his work in connection with the stonework of the House of Parliament ho said that the regulation cleaning of the Nurse Cavell memorial four times a year had been increased to six, but ho had come to the conclusion that the dingy yellow discolouration would spread slowly over the whole of the marble work, and that it was due to atmospheric impurity. At Sandon, live miles from Stafford, flic stone of the war memorial was blistered, with definite eruptions and burst surfaces which loft irregular-shaped holes.

Sir Frank said that while legislation was tentatively reaching out in an endeavour to deal with what were felt to bo the controllable factors of smoke emission—factories, power stations, and large industrial units—Parliament was not prepared to deal with the critical problem of the domestic fire or the very destructive sulphur gases. Local and municipal bodies were taking an increased interest in planning restrictions to eliminate some part of the nuisance. He paid tribute to the work of the National Smoke Abatement Society in calling conferences of local authorities to arrange for formation of area committees. DESTRUCTION IN DUNEDIN. Dunedin has no National Smoke Abatement Society to express concern at the destruction being slowly wrought to the various buildings and monuments in our architecturally beautiful city, and naturally things are not quite as bad in Dunedin ns they are in London, for Dunedin is a trifle younger and its atmosphere of smoke and other impurities is not on the same grand scale. Nevertheless, that destruction is going on in Dunedin is plainly visible to those who know where to look for evidence and to those who can recognise the symptoms when they see them. Dunedin’s atmosphere is by no means pure in spite of the gentle draughts periodically supplied by Nature. Much coal, both in factory and home, is burnt in Dunedin, and since New Zealand coals contain much sulphur, the air is polluted with sulphuric acid and other chemical compounds which slowly but inevitably destroy stone.

An .enlightened society of a hundred years lienee may see to it that Dunedin’s atmosphere is not polluted by smoko and other noxious effluvia as it is at present. But in the meantime all our stone buildings will go on deteriorating to a greater or lesser extent, and signs of weathering will progressively increase. Thc_ time to found a smoko abatement society would be before irreparable damage is done.