Tip costs the burning issue

Chris Northover PHOTO/FILE

Hell hath no fury like a woman fumigated.

Her Serene Loveliness let out a very unserene yelp last Saturday when the bright sun was blotted out by a thick cloud of oily smoke.

The smoke made its putrid way through our house and settled on the washing, which she had only just - lovingly - washed, rinsed, then hung out to dry on the line, nicely smoothed and hung so the sheets dried flat with the creases in exactly the right place for making the beds.

The smoke was reminiscent of that made by an old English battleship, under full steam so as to catch the Bismarck before she reached open sea - but less fragrant.

Forces were marshalled and orders given and the man of the house was dispatched to discover the source of this outrage. It didn't come from the usual "burner" to the west of the house and the wind was so fluky that it was some time before I found where it was coming from ... closer to the river.

A neighbour's son was cutting branches off a totara tree and putting them straight into a drum of burning rubbish. He told me in a cheery manner that I was lucky that he was burning the wood while the leaves were green, because it would really smoke if he dried it first. And, anyway, why didn't we just close our windows.

I didn't think that Her Loveliness would be impressed with this optimistically offered advice and I could sense discord looming.

The smoke was so thick that when the wind gusted from one direction, it was a hazard to traffic. When it gusted westward it went unerringly straight through our house, pungent and oily. The air in our house was as thick with smoke as a student flat in the 70s, only a bit less herbaceous - and not a stick of incense in sight.

We had a short but intense discussion about alternative methods of disposing of the branches. My suggestion that he ought to put them on a trailer and take them to the tip "like the rest of us had to" did not meet with approval, and perhaps I understand why.

He would have had to take out a mortgage to afford that option. A standard trailer of green waste at Liffiton St transfer station costs between $25 and $32, and when it looks just too big, the transfer station will weigh the trailer and charge $129 for each tonne of waste.

Some time ago, the station explained to me that the expense was in shifting the waste from the transfer station to the organisation that was making compost from it.

I made an enquiry with the council and they promptly sent a man from Wanganui Security to investigate.

Did you know that the council had contracted out this sort of work? I didn't.

But what a surprisingly nice security man - diplomatic and pleasant. He told me that the fire was safe because it was contained in a drum and that it would make less smoke once the fire was burning properly - and I was lucky that the wood was being burned while it was still green or it would have made a lot more smoke.

Why does everyone know more about native wood than I do? Or were both of us naive in our own way?

By the way, does anyone need any of these magic beans I swapped for our cow on my way to the market?

Chris Northover is a Wanganui-based former corporate lawyer who has worked in the fields of aviation, tourism, health and the environment.