Residents slow to get pollution message

Christchurch is facing another winter smog threat as far too few people voluntarily take steps to clean up the city's pollution.

Smog levels in the city exceed recommended health levels on average 30 days a year, but many people are failing to face up to the problem, new figures show.

The regional council, Environment Canterbury (ECan), has been encouraging people to replace polluting wood and coalburners and open fires, but the response had been less than expected.

"People need to change the way they heat. We can't afford as a city to continue having degraded air," ECan air-quality councillor Richard Budd said yesterday.

The city needed to progressively convert 35,000 burners to cleaner forms of heating by 2013 to meet tough new Environment Ministry national standards.

About 10,000 of these could be clean-burning fuel burners.

If the city failed to meet these standards, no new air discharge permits could be issued, and health and economic growth would suffer, Mr Budd said.

Last year, ECan hoped nearly 4000 people would convert their homes to cleaner heating methods, but only about 1800 did.

So far this year, about 900 people have converted out of a targeted 4800.

ECan's Clean Heat Project - which offers some people fully subsidised new heating if they also insulate their homes - had been enthusiastically received, but far fewer people than expected had taken advantage of the offer.

Under its air plan, ECan hoped to introduce mandatory requirements to force people to convert. But until that plan became operational, there was no way to force people to change, Mr Budd said.

ECan operations director Ken Lawn said the council intended to launch an aggressive marketing campaign in the next few months.

"We have a significant air pollution problem and 90 per cent is from household solid fuel burners."

- NZPA