General Chat

have decided now that there is a link between vehicle fumes, (especially diesel being the greater culprit) and asthma and other respiratory conditions not to mention higher death rates

I can recall in early to mid seventies a programme on this topic televised and readings were taken of a school playground in a rural area and compared to that of a playground with a busy city road beside it. Guess which playground had the higher pollution.

Buggies became popular and I used to squawk that the babies were in a direct line of fumes from vehicle exhausts. In the latter half of the eighties my two g.children were born and no, never were in a buggy.

More than 25 years ago or so a nursery opened in a house a few miles from where we live and back garden turned into a playground. Nothing wrong with that one would say - however it is sited right on the crossroads with four slip roads as well. One road leading towards a motorway and another to an airport. There are always lines of traffic belching out fumes, what those children are breathing in I dread to think. Why did their Planning office agree to change of use to a nursery?

No different are all the keep-fit addicts pounding the pavements longside busy main roads. Least they have a choice.

I discovered when I first visited the nearest city to us never ever to visit in the warmer weather - one could see the pollution/fumes hovering some 2'-3' above a road.

Will this go on the back burner for another forty odd years?

https://www.eta.co.uk/2015/01/07/pollution-charge-for-london-drivers-last-chance-to-have-your-say/

My late husband who was in the Met police in the 60s70s and 80s and was on point duty at Marble Arch,Oxford street etc ended up with pulmonary fibrosis which was put down to the state of London traffic in those earlier times.
You could smell the air in the city in those days
When he died I was asked by our doctor if I wanted to stake a claim,but I declined...would have been an ongoing affair that I didn't want
It was a terrible disease..
We are subject to so much pollution these days with chemicals,but we always had unrealised things like smoking chimneys etc back in the early years...I recall lots of buildings that I believed to be naturally black and it was a surprise when they were cleaned up to their normal colour.

I can see no sense in charging people more and more to drive their cars into the city - unless decent public transport is put on!!
When I moved to where I am, 25 years ago, the buses ran every 15 minutes into town. There were very few cars parked on the road side.
Over the years, the bus service was cut, so fewer buses, and as it was cut, so more cars appeared - and the bus company complained that it was difficult to get a bus around!!

We now have a 'service' that starts at 07:45, with a bus every hour until 16:45. the next bus is 17:15, and the last bus (from town, it doesn't go back down) is 18:15.

Not much good if you need to catch a train to and from work, in fact not much good if you need to use the bus to get to work in town!! Any thought of, say, going to the leisure centre after work is out of the question, as are late doctor's appointments.

Other areas on the outskirts get buses every 10 and fifteen minutes from 16:00 until at least 20:00.

So, the lack of a decent public transport system has, even in this small area, has led to a vast increase in cars.

Air fresheners, wood burning stoves and candles have also been cited as forms of dangerous pollution inside houses.

have a neighbour who lights an open fire daily at 4.00 p.m. as soon as autumn chill begins and continues on until warmer days.

OH is the devil for fresh air - so as soon as I yell 'smoke' he has to rush upstairs and shut the windows as the wood smoke stinks and affects my breathing. I thought we were in a clear air zone.

Tired of telling his nibs that 15 mins is sufficient to air a room. - don't mind in the summer. We don't have candles, air fresheners, hair spray.

I don't use candles, hair spray or air fresheners either - if there's a smell - get rid of it, don't try to 'hide' it!!!
I should imagine spray-on deodorants aren't particularly good for the lungs either.

all sprays are a no-no. Bleach or toilet cleaner left in toilet pan for a while - shut the toilet doors and open the window wide!

Apart from all of this I am a joy to live with says I ;-)

I got sick of my husband and son both spraying deodorant everywhere every day. They would spray it all over themselves not just underarms. It would get on my chest and left a film of spray over everything. I eventually bought them both stick deodorants - problem solved. My son who is a big lad and always had trouble with wet patches on his shirt in warm weather wouldn't go back to sprays. The sticks work much better and he never has the same problem now.

Kath. x

London has particular problems of too many taxis and too many traffic lights.
The former are no more than chauffeur driven cars and can be up to a quarter of all vehicles on particular roads. No need with the best train services, underground and surface, and bus frequency in the Country.
Ken Livingstone, when mayor, embarked on a policy of narrowing roads and setting traffic lights to delay traffic other than buses and taxis as much as possible. Constant stop-start is the worst thing for producing pollution and we are living with his legacy.
As for diesel, it's fifty percent better than petrol for reducing CO2 and therefore climate change but not so good for city air quality with present technology.

My mum always had great faith in the carbolic.

But then, she ensured that all our clothes were well aired while they were hung-out in the back garden in that lovely fresh air that exists only in the West of Ireland.

She did not depend entirely on a tumble dryer - too costly and, in any case, she didn't possess one! :-D