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1(2
Cost to the Community.
The heavy social and monetary cost of smoke pollution to the
community is emphasised by the Committee. Among the social
costs are the loss of sunlight and the harm to the health of citizens ;
the reduction in the amenities of town life ; the damage to buildings
and textile fabrics ; the extra costs of painting, washing and
laundry ; and the loss of food production which results from the
smoke deposited in the countryside around towns. These are only a
few of the main losses incurred by the community due to smoke.
Proposals.
Proposals are made in the Report for increasing efficiency by
each of the three main smoke producing users. These include :—
1. Domestic Use.
(а) The development of more efficient types of open fire which
will burn coal with less smoke and even greater efficiency
than the standard improved fires now coming into popular
use.
(b) The use of more gas domestically during peak hours of the
electricity supply system, with correspondingly greater
supplies of coke.
2. Industrial Use.
(a) Expansion of the fuel advisory services.
(b) Financial incentives to firms for installing fuel efficiency
equipment.
(c) Requirement of prior approval for heating installations in
new industrial and commercial buildings.
(b) More schemes for training stokers in the efficient and smokeless
firing of boilers and furnaces.
3. Steam Railway Locomotives.
As there appears to be no practicable method of making the
standard steam locomotive fuel efficient and smokeless, progress
must come from the switch to other methods of traction.
The Committee also considered more general adoption of smoke
Byelaws and the establishment of smokeless zones. They did not
feel that at the present time the extension of Byelaw control would