Air Quality in Celbridge

WilliamJM

Hi There, just checking to see if anyone else has noticed the bad smog in recent nights. Its happened a few times recently and my kids clothes smell like they were at a camp fire and the air is hard to breath. Cant be good for them.
Thanks, William

Joe Public

During our very rare fine spell we are getting some foggy nights and temperature inversion due to lower ground temps to the air high above. In this kind of weather the pollutants usually from open fires get trapped and don't escape into the upper atmosphere. The result is we end up with the smoke particles floating around in the fog droplets and we breath them and get them on our clothes, it's difficult to avoid if you are out during the evenings/nights. We are supposed to be in a smokeless zone but I think there's a bit more than the permitted smoke free fuel hitting some of the open fires and stoves.

WilliamJM

Thanks Joe. That concurs with the reply I had from the EPA. Seems there is not a lot they can do about it. Its classes similar to noise, that is, you have to find the offender yourself and approach them with a complaint. It was bad again yesterday evening and a few chimneys looked pretty smokey to me. There was a van selling turf over the past few weeks so I suspect that has something to do with it. Hopefully the warmer windy weather will return soon :-(

Joe Public

Under the provisions of Mary Harney's Clean Air Act of 1990 the marketing,
distribution and sale of Bituminous "Smokey Coal" is banned in Dublin and
other designated towns and cities.

The act bans the marketing, distribution and sale of smokey coal in Smoke Control Areas.

It does not ban the burning of such coal.

BNM products are allowed to be sold in smokeless zones.
Turf can be quite smokey but I'm not sure if it's allowed to be sold in smokeless zones but if BNM products are allowed then it's hard to see why "raw" turf should be outlawed.

JJOG

Joe Public wrote: »

Under the provisions of Mary Harney's Clean Air Act of 1990 the marketing,
distribution and sale of Bituminous "Smokey Coal" is banned in Dublin and
other designated towns and cities.

The act bans the marketing, distribution and sale of smokey coal in Smoke Control Areas.

It does not ban the burning of such coal.

BNM products are allowed to be sold in smokeless zones.
Turf can be quite smokey but I'm not sure if it's allowed to be sold in smokeless zones but if BNM products are allowed then it's hard to see why "raw" turf should be outlawed.

The Air Pollution Act introduced the original ban in Dublin in 1990s but it's been expanded in the meantime and is now in 26 urban areas including all cities and towns with a population greater than 15k. Since 2012 the regulations also ban the burning of smoky coal to complement the ban on sale. The local authority enforces the legislation and not the EPA so best to approach them in the first instance and they should investigate rather than leaving it to the individual - Kildare are the relevant LA for Celbridge and I think are quite active in this area. Turf is not covered by the regulations...which is perhaps an Irish solution to an Irish problem, but then there isn't much turf used in Dublin but the situation may be different in Kildare.

BuffyBot

Two year old thread..