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45.
ATMOSPHERIC POLLUTION.
(Clean Air Act 1956).
It has been estimated that the Nation's bill for atmospheric pollution is
£150,000,000 per year and that two million tone of smoke, five million tons of
sulphur dioxide, and eight hundred thousand tons of grit and dust are
produced and blown into the atmosphere each year.
Sulphur dioxide is produced in large quantities from many sources but
scientific experts do not regard it as a serious danger to health because
it is dispersed and diluted in the bulk of the atmosphere. It is only in the
large power stations where efforts have been made to reduce the emission of
sulphur dioxide and it is not thought to be economically possible to reduce
the amount of sulphur emitted to the atmosphere so long as coal and oil are
burnt in the quantity required for our needs.
It may be that the advent of atomic power stations will see a reduction
in the amount of sulphur pollution in the atmosphere but, as this is not a
serious health hazard, we must await events.
SMOKE:
We are left to consider smoke, which consists of the minute particles
produced by burning fuels, particles which float and remain in suspension in
the atmosphere indefinitely, particles which are taken into the substance
of our lunge and retained there forever to do incalculable harm.
This is the problem which the Clean Air Act 1956 sets out to solve by the
control of pollution at large sources and by the declaration of smoke control
areas throughout the Black Areas in particular (of which Shoreditch is one).
until the smoke probem would be reduced to a reasonable level.
The campaign to reduce smoke from all sources continued during the year,
but measurements recorded at our observation station show that there is still
much to be done before this problem is reduced to satisfactory proportions.
The solution of this problem lies in dealing with four different sources
of smoke, which are - domestic sources, industrial sources, railways and
road vehicles. The Council's policy to declare smoke control areas until the
whole of the Borough is smokeless within about seven years should deal with
the solution of the industrial and domestic problems.