View report page

(h) Pollution from Railway.
The main line of the Western Region of British Railways
which runs through the industrial part of the district is now
largely dieselised.
(i) Industrial Bonfires.
Section 47 of the Middlesex County Council Act, 1961, which
closes one of the gaps in the Clean Air Act by prohibiting dark
smoke from industrial bonfires, came into operation on the 1st
January and has proved a most valuable additional aid in the
clean air campaign. The inclusion of this Section in the new
Middlesex County Council Act was proposed and sponsored by this
Authority.
In addition to the usual type of factory bonfire consisting
of paper, cardboard, oily waste, and general rubbish the powers
have been used to put a stop to the following sources of dense
black smoke: - burning car bodies, burning insulated cable for
recovery of copper, burning highly inflammable waste solvents
and paint.
(j) Measurement of Atmospheric Pollution.
Three stations for the measurement of atmospheric pollution
by the daily volumetric method are in use. The pollutants
measured are smoke and sulphur dioxide.
During the year the form in which pollution is expressed
was changed by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research:
sulphur dioxide, formerly given in parts per 100 million
is now given in microgrammes per cubic metre; and smoke,
formerly given in milligrammes per 100 cubic metres is now also
given in microgrammes per cubic metre. In the case of sulphur
dioxide the old figures can be converted to the new by multiplying
by 28.6 and in the case of smoke by multiplying by 10.
Phen commenting in previous reports on pollution figures,
I have stressed the need to look at the trend over a fairly
long period rather than to compare the figures for two consecutive
years. This was to discourage any feeling of selfsatisfaction
or complacency that the constantly improving figures
might have given rise to. The figures shown on page 32
however, for the first time since measurements began, represent
28