C onsuman 7 interest No Smoking By LESLIE ADRIAN 11 was
with a strange mixture of pride and irritation that I heard the other day that I am about to become smokeless. It is, obviously, going to be the greatest possible nuisance to change round from coal-burning--yet all the same it does say something for the local authority that they have ordered the measure. Though why it should be up to the local authority to decide, I cannot think : London's air can hardly change from pure to foul along the borough boundaries. Domestic smoke is responsible for 80 per cent. of our air pollution; and although the administration of a smoke con- trol order is necessarily a local matter, effective attack _ on the black areas requires central plan- ning and a logical system of priorities. There is, however, no compulsion in the Clean Air Act, and the Minister of Housing (who actually makes the smoke control orders) can do _nothing until the order is requested by the local authority—a point Which the Clean Air Conference, meeting next week, might well consider.
little an attempt to bring the smogless society a closer, the Minister asked all the official black areas to submit their plans for smoke con- trol over the next five years. Nearly a quarter of the authorities approached had no plans to Oren some thought the Minister was colour-blind, ()titers feared the unpopularity of robbing ,those Of ,their electors who were entitled to conces- sionary coal, and the rest just had not got around to Worrying about the matter yet. After all, the dean Air At is only four years old. Shortage of smokeless fuel is no longer a \ alid "ettse for staying black. The limitation at the rilk.9Thent is in the choice of fuel, not in the supply. wing households in 'clean' areas demand the tiPrernium fuels, but the majority have to make , ° Yvith coke. 'You cannot expect Scottish people ',,i,burn gas cinders,' said the president of the rational Society for Clean Air, when explaining u e unpopularity of coke in Scotland. It is equally been with many Sassenachs. It has even 'oeen nicknamed 'coal with the goodness taken 01:1'. Yet by 1965, even with smoke abatement iliters made at the present leisurely rate. a for- Idable number of grates will either burn coke or remain cold. When the Peech Committee published their report on smokeless fuels in April, they esti- mated that in live years' time the demand for smokeless fuels would be over five million tons a year, but the supply of premium fuels such as Coalite and Cleanglo ('coke with the goodness left in') would be less than I f million tons. The balance would have to be made up with coke. In the public imagination, Cosy, the bear, does not toast his paws in front of a coke flie.
One thing seems clear : if the rising stocks of coke are ever to diminish, it will be necessary to launch a serious propaganda campaign telling people how to use it. No one without a modern grate and a mechanical lighting device will ever get more than a bad smell put of coke, and there is a' certain knack in laying a coke fire which could usefully be explained. With coke more than 2s. per cwt. cheaper than premium fuels, many, people would be glad to be convinced that it is a practical alternative. The coal industry is spend- ing over 000,000. a year in its attempt to make coke more attractive to the consumer; and it is the official policy of both political parties that solid fuel should be the main source of domestic heating, even if the price of coal is up by 10s.
Yet the present haphazard working of the Clean Air Act hampers the coal industry in its competition v'ith oil and to some extent with electricity and gas. Expensive plans for increasing the production of top-quality smokeless fuel and for modernising the marketing of coal cannot be made with certainty. Also, the present unsatisfied demand for premium fuels may turn many house- holds to other forms of heating. It has taken six years for the Coal Board's 'Bronowski briquettes' to reach the pilot-plant stage, and the coal industry is counting on the success of the experi- ment. Meanwhile the competition in smokeless 7011eS for the top-qualit■ clean coals is aggravated by their popularity in areas where there is no law against burning ordinary 'dirty' domestic coal.
Residents in zones about to become smokeless may find the selection of evocative and witty names for the clean fuels rather confusing. It is worth remembering that Rexco, Coalite, Cleanglo and Warmco arc all premium smokeless fuels costing over I Is. per cwt. in the summer and 12s, 6 in the winter. for some reason, is Is. per cwt. dearer. (loco and Seebrite are improved cokes and cost hem een 9s. 9d. and 10s. 10d. per cwt. according to the season. These fuels are nearly twice as hulk) as domestic coal, which may create serious storage problems. But the construction of a larger coal-hole is not included in the list of clean air improvements which rank for a local authority grant.
A few London coal merchants are winning goodwill, in areas declared smokeless, by helping the customers who are left with a binful of illegal 'dirty' coal. (Some local authorities tell you just at the end of one winter that the area will be declared smokeless before the next.) In the Lon- don area, Charringtons, Rickett Cockerell and the Consolidated Colliery Company have all told me that they are willing to collect and buy back resaleable domestic coal (i.e., lumps not dust). They will pay a sum varying between about 30s. and 60s. a ton less than the current price. So, before you resort to burning your coal illegally at night, or carting it in bags to your relatives in smoky zones, phone your coal merchant and perhaps be will make you an offer.
After a short fishing holiday in Connemara in the West of Ireland, a colleague brought back a couple of dozen lake trout for distribution around the office. I was on the receiving end of two of them and was astonished at their freshness— considering the time that had elapsed between hooking and eating. He explained that he had packed the trout in a plastic bag together with a miniature American freezing unit of canned ice called an 'Iceberger'; a hard book-cover-sized tin, of 'dry' or 'hoe ice which can be used and re-used indefinitely after refreezing in the re- frigerator. The unit, he says, didn't drip all over his air luggage, was generally unobtrusive and lightweight and showed no sign of losing its chill even after hours of travel.
I thought this was probably just another development of the apparently insatiable Ameri- can appetite for keeping everything cold at all times, but I find that two types of portable freezers are currently on sale in London; one, the tin American variety, is put out by the Danish Agricultural Producers, used specifically to keep Danish open sandwiches fresh and cool, and is lodged at the back of metal picnic carriers; the other, a small, plastic British product called the 'Freezella' is made by Insulex Ltd. I would per- sonally opt for the metal containers in spite of the fact that the 'Freezella' is inexpensive, feather- weight and convenient; I have patched up enough children's plastic toys not to :wish to start on an ice-bag containing `chemical gel, whatever that is. Mothers travelling with infants, who need to keep milk from souring in mid-trip will find the freezers useful; so will travellerovho are taking lager or hock with them. '
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I have had a letter from a reader who said that estimates on moving her 'household from one town to another varied between £40 and £120. This is so wide a discrepancy that she wondered, not unnaturally, what sort of racket could be in operation; and I have promised to look into it. i would be very glad to hear from any other readers who have moved house re- cently: how much it cost, how they got on and how they made up their minds which removals firm to use.
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