Washing the Wind

TO the casual Parisian passerby, the contraptions look like smokestacks or versions of Colonnes Morris, pillars handy for posting theatrical notices. Actually, the two 16.5-ft.-tall towers just erected in the Gare de Lyon section of Paris are huge, electrically driven vacuum cleaners designed to suck in dust, filter it and blow clean air out the top. "Clear the air! Wash the wind! Clean the sky!" as T.S. Eliot put it. If tests made of the surrounding air show that the towers really work, 50 to 100 more may be set up around the city. But that would require more electricity and the burning of more coal or oil to produce it--which in turn would create more air pollution.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.