Air quality

Tyre fire
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/smoke-fire-salford-adelphi-news-9131707#rlabs=2
That's pretty toxic.

and

Engulfed in smoke
http://www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/2/news-headlines/95497/fire-engulfs-dale-street-in-smoke

Considering how damaging to health polluted air is, and what a huge worldwide problem it is now, it is interesting to note how accepting of toxic fires the public is. This could be due to ancestral memory. For as long as humans have existed, fire and smoke have been associated with hunting and control of landscape, with warmth and social meetings, generally positive and essential parts of life.

Even more recently, at least since the iron and bronze ages, fire has been associated with wealth and power in the smelting and working of metals, right up to the age of steam and houses with coal fires, all positive connections.

In the modern developed world, fire and smoke usually means completely the opposite, pollution, danger, suffering and death, expense, disruption, destruction of the environment, and caused by either crime or negligence.

Similar with sugar, our ancestors sought ripe berries and fruit with sugar content, that ancestral instict is still with us and we gorge on sugar laden food that is actually very bad for us.

Huge toxic fire in Birmingham today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qk1of2N-8Ho

Oh, actually that's a very simillar huge toxic fire in Birmingham a couple of years ago.

This is todays' huge toxic fire in Birmingham.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhWZ6P_JwVs

The point is, that these huge toxic fires keep happening.

How else would you re-cycle at a very low cost.   We used to call them Jewish Stocktake's. Man's capacity for ingenuity will always supersede the law.

Mans capacity for burning huge piles of tyres to create huge plumes of toxic smoke seems to be a regular thing, it 'just happens' fairly frequently.

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/live-oldham-fire-durban-mill-9331476#rlabs=3

Accidents happen, but, might happen less often if the pollutor was to pay the price?

The pollutor should, in the right circumstances, carry Public Liability Insurance. That covers for liability claims from the 'public' (in this case the Fire Services). But it is not a 'fail-safe' system we have if the 'miscreant' refuses to comply with the law and absconds etc etc etc . How the law stands at the moment on 'claims' for intentional or accidental damages is a bit obscure i.e. in other words - not in my field of knowledge.

The implications of how insurance works are obscure, but have a huge and long-term effect on what various organisations do and how they behave.

The status quo is that the public accept huge toxic pollution fires without much protest. Until they decide they won't put up with it, such toxic fires etc will continue as they do, frequent and deadly.

Tyre fires release huge plumes of toxic looking black smoke, and it is just as toxic as it looks. With all the vehicles on the road now, there are huge amounts of tyres around. Piles of them can set on fire quite easily, and difficult to put out once they start burning. Need to be stored safely.

You might think that rubber, being a natural substance would burn without releasing a lot of chemicals, but maybe partly because modern tyres are quite 'improved', toxicology reports on tyre burning smoke are a list of poisonous chemicals, some being 'mutagens' that attack the D.N.A. and affect the next generation.

The tyres you have on your cars are not a 'natural' substance in that they cannot do the job required without the addition of stabilising chemicals/oils/metals etc etc. When mixed under excessive heat these mix to produce and release other chemicals That's why the high level of toxicity. Latex has a less toxic vapour - so I am told?

At one time old tyres were re-moulded and re-used. I believe this practice was banned some years ago. There has to be a way of recycling but as yet I don't know of one. Maybe in time??? Meanwhile - storage or land-fill - - - ??? You would have thought that some bright spark somewhere would have found a good use for them. I've seen various items - flower pots, boat fenders, seats and chairs but as yet nothing that would inspire the entrepreneur to get more involved on a mass scale. Ah well  - - -

Another big tyre fire now at Halifax, with the usual dense black smoke covering houses.

Of course air quality is bad when someone farts near by.

http://www.halifaxcourier.co.uk/webimage/1.7283800.1432831137!/image/3195258303.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_620/3195258303.jpg

English summer, a few rainy days and a tyre fire. People have to put up with worse in war zones.

http://www.halifaxcourier.co.uk/webimage/1.7283730.1432829567!/image/3392744641.jpg_gen/derivatives/carouselWideDeriv_352px/3392744641.jpg

One good reason for refusing to go to war. Cleaner air. I can think of a dozen others much more deserving.
For those unfortunates caught up in mindless conflicts and who have done everything they could to disway  the hot-heads in their midst I have the utmost sympathy. The world is full of inequities with those least able suffering the results of the madness.

As for tyres and fyres - (so why aren't the spellings the same) & (with two words - 'are' & 'not' why is there only one colon and not two?) I can only deduce that the children are on holiday and wanting a bit of excitement in their lives or spontaneous combustion or a Jewish stocktake? Arsonists have been known to obtain work in the Fire Services to enable them to 'make their days'. Who knows?

T'is a conundrum.

If things were organised in such a way that firms and businesses responsible for toxic fires and poisinous pollutions suffered the financial cost, rather than as now happens, the taxpayer or the insurance industry, owners and shareholders of such organisations might understand that a bit more care and a few more safety precautions would be a worthwhile investment. Asking "Please don't pollute the air we breathe" won't get very far. Financial arrangements tend to be more persuasive in the world of business, commerce and industry.

Ah. Be it ever so. Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured and little to be enjoyed.   

It's nice when everything is reasonably well sorted out though. Regulation of banking and insurance industries, so as to benefit society rather than damage it could make a positive difference. These things tend to go their own way though.

I doubt, due to the risks involved, whether many 'tyre dumps' are insured to the extent they ought to be. I can see it from the insurers POV. Hopefully another method of re-cycling will be discovered soon.

Tyre dumps are by no means the main sort of industrial pollution incidents, just rather visible ones with their thick black smoke. Of course the insurers have a point of view, a business angle. Insurance companies have been quite happy to go along with the crash for cash racket, in both cases it's joe public that bears the cost and the danger.

It's Joe Public who pays for everything. Insurance companies and governments don't have any money until Joe gives it to them - to spend wisely. It's perhaps that 'wisdom' that's lacking. Perhaps you should suggest to the government the imposition of large fines and imprisonment for under-insuring the potential dangers of rubber scrap-heaps? Who knows. You may start a new trend in 'wisdom'.

Not sure there is much of a market for wisdom, probably depends how it is packaged. Financial matters seem to reliably catch more attention. The cost of treating cancer is considerable, and could arguably be reduced if environmental pollution was reduced? Meanwhile back at the ranch, in a post industrial society, people still associate smoke and industrial waste with jobs and prosperity. There is a connection, but not really a healthy one.

To create we must first destroy. It was ever so. We rape the planet to provide our 'wants'. If the planet cannot stand it and fights back (which it is) we shall always be the loser. To try and connect pollution to cancers, whilst meritorious, will for the most part be ignored until 'all' homo-sapiens have had their fill of the 'good' things. Which will of course be never. Not a good line to end on - but true nevertheless.

Nature may come up with something to restore it's balance, we are supposed to be in time of the greatest extinction of species since millions of years ago. Humans are their own problem. According to Einstein, we humans are thinking creatures, just as birds are flying creatures, so, maybe we will think of something useful?

I haven't the slightest doubt that we will invent the technology to rectify the damage we are doing and that we will not (this time) be the instrument of our own downfall. I would proffer the downfall of 'man' as the dominant species will come from outside our planet or from within by way of disease of the Pandemic variety. 30 million died between 1917 - 1920 from Spanish flu and surprised the world's academicians by attacking and killing the fittest (as opposed to the weakest) - between the ages of 20 and 35. Immunity came for some by the mutation of the virus. Fine if the virus mutates slowly than the cures - but what if it doesn't? There are so many ways 'man' can be erased that it is inconceivable such will not happen 'eventually'. Happy soul am I not! But real when it comes down to logic.

It is miraculous that we live, survive and breathe, despite the forces of disease, destruction and decay that constantly surround us. Nice blue sky at the moment, and it would be good to keep it that way.

Its a question of keeping that 'one step ahead'. We have managed it so far. Let's hope our luck holds?????

Huge tyre fire in Bradford last night, over a thousand tyres. Do we breathe the same air?

Not directly - unless the wind direction favours your area - but the chemicals and detritus that the smoke contains will settle eventually somewhere and get kicked around for all to 'enjoy'. However - considering that volcanoes produce almost 70% of the worlds co2 and other molecules which have over the millennia serve as the base for growth of the world's natural vegetation it would appear that one cannot do without the other and that man and all the other species on the earth have to exist within those parameters whilst avoiding over-doing one's individual intake. Bit of a lottery really isn't it?