The American Scene; Air Pollution

Good morning. William Wordsworth once wrote, and to my faith that every flower enjoys the air at breeze. In some parts of our country today, Mr. Wordsworth might get an argument with this statement. Air pollution has become a rather popular phrase today, and it is true that there are areas within the American scene which sometimes become hazy as a result of polluted air, to the extent that very few things enjoy the air they breathe. But at the same time, the definition of the phrase air pollution can become hazy itself. And it is for this reason that we have invited two experts this morning to offer comments about air pollution. Mr. A .B. Pettit, Director of Industrial Health and Safety for WR Grayson Company in New York, and Chairman of the Air Pollution Abatement Committee of the Manufacturing Chemist Association. And with him is Mr. Samuel Radner, Research Chemical Engineer in the Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Division of Armor Research Foundation of Illinois Tech. Gentlemen, is there a

brief way that we might begin by defining what we mean by air pollution? Mr. Radner. Well, air pollution has been defined. And that's about as best that I've heard it defined as the concentration of man -made materials in the atmosphere to the point where they become detrimental to health or to well -being and the enjoyment of one's property, reasonable enjoyment of one's property. Mr. Pettit, is this agreeable to you? Well, generally, that is agreeable to me, except however, I think we're eliminating the natural sources of air pollution which our justice troublesome as the man -made horses. I'll agree with you on that, Mr. Pettit. The difficulty is that in the present state of the arts, we are not in the position to do very much

about the natural pollutants such as we get from dust storms or from volcanoes and so on. Since we can't do much about them, I just assume work on what we can do, and that's why I accepted that definition so readily. Well, I agree, and of course, and we are doing something on certain natural pollutants such as pollutants. Yes, that's true. It seems that there are a number of causes for air pollution, both natural and man -made, and the problem, if there is a problem, is one of control of the amount in the air. The problem, as I've always viewed it, has been to control it within tolerable limits. The way man works now, and the way man lives now, we can't expect a state of no pollution, but we can expect

to cut it down to a tolerable limit. What are some of the causes of pollution? We mentioned a few of them. Well, of course, these may be the results of the operations of various types of plants and various processes. It could be dust, it could be gas, it could be any number of things such as even odors. The thing is that regardless of the source, it had become too much of an annoyance, or any threat to the well -being of people, it should be controlled within reasonable limits, so that that condition would not exist. Well, what you mentioned were natural causes of air pollution, primarily. No, I was talking about the pollution that comes from plants from

industrial organizations. The pollution that comes from automobiles. The pollution that comes from chemical processes. The pollution that comes from making steel and practically ever means of production has some problem. Whether it be solids or liquids or gases. Mr. Redner, are there other causes or man -made causes? Well, yes. Every human being is a source of pollution in the atmosphere. We can look at a human being as a process plant in which fuel is being burned. Materials are being converted to other materials, chemically. All of these processes are not by far

100%, and therefore involve wastes which the body has to get rid of. Those wastes are contributory to air pollution. And I'm discussing only the physical bodily wastes. They have been with us as long as we've had life on Earth. Every organism has that. Then we have our external waste problems. We use materials. We erode the Earth. We stir it up. When we walk, we wear out clothes that we have. The air is generally full of the fibrous materials that come from our clothes and our bed linens and so on. Then as civilization progresses, we create more and more waste because we are converting for each personal use. Per person, we are converting more and more materials. More and more energy is being used. Instead of the

old horse and buggy, we've got the automobile. Instead of traveling with the horse and buggy through a five mile range, we take our automobile and think nothing of running out for dinner at 90 miles distant from our home up and back. Now we're converting a terrific amount of energy and it is not 100 % efficient. The engine exhaust considerable pollutants into the atmosphere. When we get a million cars running around, we're going to feel it. The same thing applies to cleaning our houses. The same thing applies to cleaning our premises on the outside. I've seen time and time again where storekeepers out in a reasonably busy section sweep the sidewalk off into the gutter and wait for the next car to come along and stir it up and throw it back in their faces. Instead of removing it from the scene and from the point where it can be once more dissipated form. In a finer form, so that he not only gets to do as a newspaper, he gets

part of that newspaper to breathe into his lungs. Whether he likes it or not or gather on his face, there are so many sources. Then there's the decay of plant life around us. There's the erosion and corrosion of all our building materials. There's the activity. We wreck buildings because they come out of date. We build new ones. We're handling all these materials that are subject to being airborne. And so the problem multiplies and multiplies. Well, there are any number of causes then. Why has this become such a popular cause today? Why is air pollution considered a problem today? Many of these causes of it have been around for a long time. Well, unless you want to. Do we have something to add to it? I think primarily, as I tried to point out a few minutes ago, that we, per person, are consuming a great deal more of materials than we

used to. Vacuum cleaners, rugs and carpets and tiles, new plastic industry, automobiles and trucks to deliver these air conditioning, heating, ventilating, all these take up energy and consume materials of which there's a waste. The other thing is that there's been a terrific tendency towards concentration of people in specific areas. And when we get such concentrations that the accumulation of individual emissions are too much for the natural ventilation of the area, the winds and so forth, to take it away and leave us in a comfortable condition, then we've overloaded our aerial sewage system. And that can very readily happen when populations become extremely concentrated and the production per man is increased, the two work

together and there you have a problem, which you didn't have before. How does that sound to you? That's the observation I've been. Well, I think you're entirely right. There's one thing that I believe has had considerable effect on the opinions of the public. And that is a lot of articles have recently appeared in newspapers, some factual and some not factual, but they've been alerted to this thing. And in many cases, they're very much afraid of air pollution because of some of the, I would say, possibly, or responsible statements that have been published. And one thing that you didn't mention on your automobile dissertation, where you mentioned about the products as a combustion. There was another

item that enters into that, a few people understand, and that is that every time an automobile passes down the street or along a highway, it grinds off rubber, small particles of rubber from the tires. And this creates a considerable dust problem, a dirt problem. It also grinds parts of the road off, too. That's right. There's no doubt about that. Well, we know now that air pollution exists. How much do we know about the effect of it? I would say that I think we know fairly well with respect to certain substances, what the effect is on vegetation. And what the effect is on certain types of animal lives. I am afraid that we don't know very much about the possible effects

on the health of human beings. There have been a lot of statements made that air pollution is detrimental to the health. There has been, in my opinion, no factual proof. There has been little work done. And the United States Public Health Service is doing a lot of work, and we hope that we will have some constructive information that actually has resulted in the work that the Public Health Service is doing in this field. With regard to that, my feeling is that a great many of the situations in air pollution don't have to wait for solutions on health. That is solutions as to whether or not they are health hazards, or whether they are detrimental to health. I've always taken the stand that when it gets to a certain point, it's uncivilized. And I like the Director of Armour Research Foundation, Dr. Leedy, who likes to say that

it just can't do you much good to eat dirt. That's the feeling we have that we don't have to really wait for detrimental effects like those that happened in London, to Nora, and so on. It is just with our increased standard of living, that's really our trying to improve daily, this does not fit in. Well, it seems to me that if we were to maintain a level of pollution below that point, which is a nuisance, we would not have to worry about health at all if we can keep it below the nuisance point. And I want to make a comment on the connection with the Nora, because I think that has been overstressed in some respects too. In fact, the matter is I went to Nora immediately when this happened. There were a lot of statements made that these people died as a result of air

pollution. However, the Public Health Service made a very thorough study, spent a tremendous amount of money, and were not able to come up with any particular substance that caused the trouble. That's their official report. Do they know that in cities, the condition is worse, let's say the health problem is worse than in open country, and can they ascribe this to air pollution? Well, they do have records that indicate that pneumonia rates, respiratory cancer rates, and similar diseases are higher in congested areas than they are in the open country. Those are statistical correlations. In other words,

we say, well, in Chicago, the pneumonia level is up here, in podunkets down here. The air pollution level in Chicago is up here, in podunkets down there. Well, that's just correlating, but it doesn't mean it doesn't prove that air pollution is the cause of this high pneumonia rate or this high disease rate. It just brings the two points together for an investigation, and as Mr. Pettit pointed out very nicely, we have improved that the two are cause and effect. We don't know those things yet, and I didn't mean to imply that we shouldn't investigate that, even if we reduce our levels to a comfortable point, we still are must. Investigate the health conditions, because we may feel comfortable and not know that anything is hitting us, or we may be losing three, four, five years of our lives into a great many people. That's a very important

factor. They just want to live as long as they possibly can. Don't we all? Well, I don't know about that. I run across people who did it. Is there any area in the country or the world today where there is clean air, where air pollution hasn't arrived yet? Absolutely, no pollution, you mean? Right. I doubt that there's any. Not even on top of a mountain, it'll be up there too. Even if not from industrial or man -made causes, from natural causes. You see that depends again on the definition. The definition that I propose originally is accepted, and of course there are lots of areas where there is no air pollution. That doesn't mean that they don't have materials in the air, which can be sufficiently bad as to cause this comfort and trouble. In the dust bowl, it wasn't directly man -made, and it was very uncomfortable, I understand. I haven't been in it. Well, how might we control the problem? Which problem,

then, if we go back to your definition, the problem we're interested in controlling is the man -made pollution. How might we go about this? What are some of the ways of controlling this? I suggest that the first thing to determine in any locality that considers it has an air pollution problem is to make a thorough measurement of the air pollution, qualitative and quantitative measurement to determine exactly what does exist at the level that humans being breathed or going on beyond that, once having determined that, answering your question, then if you find that you have an excessive concentration of some particular substance, the next move would be to find where it is coming from, and insist on the controls that will bring it

down to a satisfactory level. You mentioned that at the level in which people breathe, doesn't air pollution high up in the sky have any effect on the people doesn't that ever reach down to the earth? Well, of course it can, but let's look at it this way. If you consider the fact that air, like water and forests or natural resources, you can utilize the air to the extent that it will properly dissipate the substances that are emitted into it by horizontal and vertical mixing. That is one of the problems that exists in a certain location that a lot of us know about and that is the Los Angeles County because they have a very peculiar situation up there. It's very unique in which the conditions of ventilation are very unsatisfactory.

The natural conditions. That's right. Well, there is, I suppose, by the level at which we live, you probably don't mean to limit it to five or ten feet above grade. No, and probably be closer to a thousand or two thousand feet above ground level. A lot of people are living away up in the air today, but what I meant to say is that it is perfectly legitimate and reasonable to utilize the upper air to dissipate these pollutants, the point where they are no way harmful to anything. The natural wind would carry it away or spread it fine so it wouldn't be concentrated to the point where it would be harmful. Is there some way that we can mechanically aid this process? Do you mean an eliminating pollution? Right. You

mean we need to aid the natural processes by improving the wind conditions and so on? Is this been investigated? Well, there have been some plans proposed for say, let's say, the Los Angeles Basin, such ideas as terrific fans that would throw the air through the so -called ceiling and burning of large quantities of fuel so to generate a hot gas column which will tenderize and break through the barrier, but the energy requirements are... Well, you have millions of tons of air that just refuse to budge and it will take a good nudge to get them going. And from a practical point of view, it's a just wishful thinking. There are, however, a great many techniques for preventing the emission into the atmosphere of these pollutants at the various sources. Well, this would be the most practical way. That

seems to be at the present time, the most practical. Would you agree with that? That's right, and a lot has been done in connection with that. For example, the use of scrubbers, electric pacifitators and other such devices enables you to reduce the emission from a plant. In most cases, it's not possible to completely eliminate all the emission, but generally, you can reduce it to a satisfactory level by the use of such equipment. Or what about other man -made pollutants? Well, that's just what I was going to bring in. The industrial plants have spent the great deal of money on research and are still spending money on research to develop their collectors that will stop the materials from going in to change processes and so on. And there's considerable going on. Some

people will say that there isn't enough. Others will say there's more than enough. It depends on which side of your pocket's on, I guess. But there is considerable activity. The average man, however, doesn't pay any attention to the condition of his car whether he's throwing out a pool of smoke in the back end or not. He doesn't worry about how efficient it is. He doesn't always sweep up and put his sweepings in a bag instead of scattering it to somebody else. I've seen it time and again when people just throw their cigarette packages, the empty package out on the drive, just toss it out. Instead of putting their cigarette stubs in an ash tray in a car out the window or even out of your home window because it's on the lawn. Those are little things burning your rubbish properly, getting rid of it. The home fires should be properly tended to. That's the average man's duty, but he

isn't paying too much attention to it, considering that in Chicago at least we find at roughly 40 % of the material that's suspended in the air is wind -borne. It's taken off the ground by the wind. Some of it, of course, is fly ash and sender from large fuel burning plants. But a great deal of it also is paper, ground up paper, plant life, and all these materials that are produced by the individual. Is there any way to get rid of this material entirely? It would seem to me that if you collected it, you'd have to put it somewhere and there it would lie waiting for the wind to come along and blow it into the air again. It doesn't have to wait for the wind. It can be picked up and disposed of. It can be properly burned if it's barnable. It can be used as a landfill. That's right. Now, we don't expect 100%. Because getting rid of our wastes so that they don't bother us as one of those processes that

follows the law of diminishing returns. You can get rid of 80 % of it with a reasonable amount of effort. But if you want to go to 85%, you'll probably have to put in twice the effort that you put in to get rid of the first 80%. And so on, and you cannot approach 100 % any more than any other process is 100 % effective. But we should aim for a reasonably tolerable level. That's, I'll say, again, civilized. Well, I would like to point out something in connection with what you said about the money that is being spent on research and air pollution control. Very recently, Mr. Hitzcock, who was the first president of the air pollution foundation and came out with the statement that the money being spent by industry today amounted to $11 billion a year

or $65 for every man, woman, and child in the state, in the United States every year. Now, that's money being spent now, and we're still talking about going further. That is a tremendous strain upon our economy. And there's this situation of educating people properly as to what is going on. I don't think they fully understand that the public itself is believed to be a contributor from 50 to 66 % of the air pollution that exists in our communities, with industry being only from one third to one half. So, naturally, the more concentrated the area, the greater the problem would be? That's right. Is this a problem only in America or is this a worldwide problem? In some ways, it's worldwide.

For example, I believe that Mr. Adner pointed out the situation in London. Of course, my only space is London. London has been dirty as long as I can remember it. There's a tremendous amount of coal burned. Open fireplaces? Open fireplaces. No, I can open fireplaces. But if anything is more inefficient and combustion than an open fireplace, I don't know what it is. Well, there have been, I've been going through the literature recently. I find incidents are quoted in Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Italy. I believe all of Europe is. The more the population increases and industry increases, the greater the problem becomes, just the same as in the United States. As a matter of fact, Japan is becoming very conscious of air pollution control recently. Thank you very much, gentlemen. It appears from this discussion that polluted

or contaminated air is a widespread phenomenon, not only in this country, but throughout the world. The causes of this condition can be fairly accurately described, but there still seems to be some disagreement as to the actual effect of air pollution. There is agreement, however, that all practical and well -informed steps should be taken to keep our air contamination well below the level where it can become a nuisance or a danger. And perhaps the most interesting point made this morning is that at least some degree of air pollution seems to be unavoidable in our present civilization. Good morning for the American scene.