I live in the middle of the city in so called acrorage area.YOU may expect to have all benefits of the green nature, wild life, fresh air.But this paradise picture could be ruin by land owners burning vegetation on the daily basis.
Running ride on mower, collecting all leaves and instantly burning in dense in smoke bonfire.Now you could hang a laundry, close your windows and anyway everything smells like salmon.



I do propose following solution. Lets introduce Smoko Fee of $20 to start with payable to City Council.
So each time bonfire is lighten the land owner should register online with local council , advice time and lenght of proposed fire.
Unregistered fire could follow with $5,000 fine.

This regulation may force owner to reconsider burnig stuff and rather composting , mulching or green bins and landfill.

We may live in the most developed country, middle in the city and have air quality worse then third world dumpster.

In Sydney at least the air is quite good until the government starts burning off bush surrounding the city. So under your proposal I guess its a crime unless the State does it.

I'm all for mulching and composting. Currently I'm collecting excellent worm compost from my compost heap that is full of compost worms. After its filtered its very fine and excellent for growing vegetables in.

You would absolutely hate living in the top end during the dry always fires burning anyway you are going to trigger certain people if you don't correct your thread title and they think you want them to pay a fee to have smoko.

@macro - same experience here in Perth Hills. Most weekends we can't open windows because all neighbours feel the urge to burn sh!t constantly.
I suggest you check with your council. Most will have regulations about burning and one of those is it can't cause nuisance to neighbors.
Enforcing is another matter. I had a chat to one of neighbors when I had a chance and he was not aware it was smoking out our place and reduced his burning.

No worse than all the aerosoles with the wood heaters who insist the only burn good wood yet leave it smouldering all the time

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elmo said..
No worse than all the aerosoles with the wood heaters who insist the only burn good wood yet leave it smouldering all the time

Actually the same should apply to wood/coal burners at home. There is absolutely no need to have a such in urban area/city in XXI century. Beside all stove owners will burn absolutely everything including plastics, rubbish etc producing dioxins killing their neighourd slowly but inevitable.
At my street there are only 11 houses but when two of those starts their heating season you want escape, but you can not. We are going to rid off combustion engines soon but this archaic custom of burning everything could survive.

i would have thought a little bit of smoke in the air from neigbours burning off would be a small price to pay for having a reduced fire fuel load in the area over the summer months.

my folks have a bush block and nothing causes more stress for me (or them) than the threat of fires raging through the place on a hot summers day. the only way to effectively manage this is to burn off - both small heaps (by prperty owners near the houses) and larger landscape burns (generally by the govt / vollies)

composting sounds nice but you try composting a whole forest :)

flame away

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Mobydisc said..
In Sydney at least the air is quite good until the government starts burning off bush surrounding the city. So under your proposal I guess its a crime unless the State does it.

No, exactly. Greed will win. It could be quite difficult to completely ban wood heaters and bonfires.But if you apply small charge, then you will force those people to think for a while. Byt the same method that rising cigarette pack price works.

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beefarmer said..
i would have thought a little bit of smoke in the air from neigbours burning off would be a small price to pay for having a reduced fire fuel load in the area over the summer months.

The most annoying is burning wet leafs. Everyday the same scenario. 1 hour ride on ride on mower and 5 hours burning those leafs.Leafs are very easy to compost or just deposing on 6,000m2 land without the need to burn everyday.The problem is that we all could complain to City Council , then cost all taxpayers to take action, consuming time.Lets reverse and start charging those that cause those problems in first place. I did complains to GCCC on many occasions but that is wasting of valuable resources and time of people there to deal with stupid and nasty people.

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Macroscien said..
I live in the middle of the city in so called acrorage area.YOU may expect to have all benefits of the green nature, wild life, fresh air.But this paradise picture could be ruin by land owners burning vegetation on the daily basis.
Running ride on mower, collecting all leaves and instantly burning in dense in smoke bonfire.Now you could hang a laundry, close your windows and anyway everything smells like salmon.



I do propose following solution. Lets introduce Smoko Fee of $20 to start with payable to City Council.
So each time bonfire is lighten the land owner should register online with local council , advice time and lenght of proposed fire.
Unregistered fire could follow with $5,000 fine.

This regulation may force owner to reconsider burnig stuff and rather composting , mulching or green bins and landfill.

We may live in the most developed country, middle in the city and have air quality worse then third world dumpster.

Too lazy to bloody mulch or compost the stuff. Selfish burners. FFS wet leaves are ideal mulch and composting material.

I see burning off as no different to dumping the material next door. Just as selfish.

I had a neighbour who used to do this on a small plot in a brazier, usually in mid summer when you're entertaining friends around the back. Over wofts the plume of smoke that fills every room of the house and kills the party. Used to call him 3 Inch because he was of the vintage that thought everything could be fixed with a three inch nail.

Farking burners...

Maybe Macro can go the other way? Design a huge rocket stove and give it to his neighbour to burn up anything he wants.

When done properly the flue gets pretty hot and more of the 'smoke' burns and the hotter exhaust tends to make it rise a lot better.

I was playing with one of these in the backyard. When not up to temp there was a heap of smoke around. Once up to temp, you wouldn't have known there was a fire at all. I'm not sure how you would feed one with leaves, but that's not my problem to worry about.

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FormulaNova said..
Maybe Macro can go the other way? Design a huge rocket stove and give it to his neighbour to burn up anything he wants.

When done properly the flue gets pretty hot and more of the 'smoke' burns and the hotter exhaust tends to make it rise a lot better.

I was playing with one of these in the backyard. When not up to temp there was a heap of smoke around. Once up to temp, you wouldn't have known there was a fire at all. I'm not sure how you would feed one with leaves, but that's not my problem to worry about.

Indeed I did build a few years ago , cyclonic incinerator. even demonstrated to the neighbour.

Made of ordinary steel barrel with air supplied at the top at angle to create cyclone inside.
Small centrifugal ventilator 100W is sufficient , but vacuum cleaner exhaust could do as well.
Fully loaded with fuel and small vent 10cm diameter in the middle of the top cover.
It is burning everything from top to the bottom without any smoke or smell at all.. Because of cyclonic action no dust particles escape, and the flame is clean and blue regardless what is actually burning , wet or dry.You could burn even tyre and can't see any smoke at all. This approach needs some planing , preparation, setup, - so much easier just dump leaves on ground and burn.
Temperature at the top of the flame could be close to 1500C in atmosphere rich in oxygen or more so burning is complete .
When working ,incinerator looks like upside down rocket engine and even sound like one. Whole barrel becomes glowing light red and you could not even get closer then 5 meters due to radiating heat.

But even so I prefer now composting over my incinerator.

Oh dear ... all of Asia burns off its paddy fields probably twice a year. At least in Japan they can blame the resultant ash all over everything on dirty filthy China Naturally, the farmers only burn off their fields when their houses are upwind...

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Macroscien said..

FormulaNova said..
Maybe Macro can go the other way? Design a huge rocket stove and give it to his neighbour to burn up anything he wants.

When done properly the flue gets pretty hot and more of the 'smoke' burns and the hotter exhaust tends to make it rise a lot better.

I was playing with one of these in the backyard. When not up to temp there was a heap of smoke around. Once up to temp, you wouldn't have known there was a fire at all. I'm not sure how you would feed one with leaves, but that's not my problem to worry about.

Indeed I did build a few years ago , cyclonic incinerator. even demonstrated to the neighbour.

You may as well give it to him with written instructions.

I wish I wasn't in a suburban area so I could try these things without fear of the neighbours calling the firebrigade.

I dont see how any of this has anything to do with anything macroscien

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Macroscien said..

the flame is clean and blue regardless what is actually burning , wet or dry.You could burn even tyre and can't see any smoke at all.

Temperature at the top of the flame could be close to 1500C in atmosphere rich in oxygen or more so burning is complete .

sorry to burst your bubble there but there is no such thing as "clean" or "complete" burn.

There will be always exactly the same amount of cr@p produced, be it ash or smoke. The only difference is what that looks like - amount of ash and amount of smoke. The fact you don't see it doesn't mean it's not there.

The fuel just doesn't disappear into nothing, it always ends as ash or smoke (dust particles). What goes in must come out aka conservation of mass. Physics 101

I'm not sure that is quite correct. You get incomplete combustion at low temperature or with lack of air.

In NSW it's illegal to burn off garden waste. Surprised it's not the same up north.

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gs12 said..

Macroscien said..

the flame is clean and blue regardless what is actually burning , wet or dry.You could burn even tyre and can't see any smoke at all.

Temperature at the top of the flame could be close to 1500C in atmosphere rich in oxygen or more so burning is complete .

sorry to burst your bubble there but there is no such thing as "clean" or "complete" burn.

There will be always exactly the same amount of cr@p produced, be it ash or smoke. The only difference is what that looks like - amount of ash and amount of smoke. The fact you don't see it doesn't mean it's not there.

The fuel just doesn't disappear into nothing, it always ends as ash or smoke (dust particles). What goes in must come out aka conservation of mass. Physics 101

Does that even matter in this discussion? The neighbour is going to burn off their green waste no matter what. So why not make it so that it burns more completely and has less sooty smoke?

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gs12 said..

Macroscien said..

the flame is clean and blue regardless what is actually burning , wet or dry.You could burn even tyre and can't see any smoke at all.

Temperature at the top of the flame could be close to 1500C in atmosphere rich in oxygen or more so burning is complete .

sorry to burst your bubble there but there is no such thing as "clean" or "complete" burn.

There will be always exactly the same amount of cr@p produced, be it ash or smoke. The only difference is what that looks like - amount of ash and amount of smoke. The fact you don't see it doesn't mean it's not there.

The fuel just doesn't disappear into nothing, it always ends as ash or smoke (dust particles). What goes in must come out aka conservation of mass. Physics 101

Not exactly. If you burn something at low temperature, without oxygen, then you do create complex chains of carbohydrates, long molecules.Those complex molecules are so danger because there are biologically active, carcinogenic.In industrial world we rise temperature even higher to achieve hot plasma: several thousand celsius. In this temperatures you are able to disable the most potent chemical weapons not just leafsIndeed you are still need to release the same amount by weight but then more like pure chemical elements.Anyway I would rather give that job to deal with leafs to earthworms rather then the best incinerator.

OK What should be administrative charge for something like that ?
$25
The guy next door pour a gallon of petrol into his pond to clean overgrowth vegetation. Ok job done easily, flames 10m high into sky, all frogs, plants, ducks incinerated in seconds, he survived.

Not easy to live with Barbarian near by,

Bunch of wooses.

As a kid it was my job to feed our backyard incinerator, must admit by the time I finished there wasn't much left in the area that could be classed as a fire hazard

[apart from me]

People like you macro make the world a difficult place to live. I mean, having a cry about a pot belly fire, or burning a few sticks in the back yard!??
I think you need to go windsurfing, if you even sail.

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sn said..
Bunch of wooses.

As a kid it was my job to feed our backyard incinerator, must admit by the time I finished there wasn't much left in the area that could be classed as a fire hazard

[apart from me]

We had an incinerator aswell made from heaps of besa blocks. Use to always try heard the chickens into it but they would never go all the way into the fire. But oh so so close. I was a bit hungry when i was young


The appearance of one footed turkeys was somehow occuring tho. Are turkeys dumb or brave? Chickens smart or...m chicken? Ill never know

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Spocktek said..
People like you macro make the world a difficult place to live. I mean, having a cry about a pot belly fire, or burning a few sticks in the back yard!??
I think you need to go windsurfing, if you even sail.

Don't confuse fun of lighting fire with compulsive obsession. There is no need to burn few branches and bag of leafs everyday.I am sure that once the guy will run out of material to burn, will go to nearest city dump to bring some more to home.Beside inconvenience of the smoke, there may be also matter of life or death if somebody suffer asthma in your family.