Ah choo — Adelaide City councillor Alexander Hyde’s proposal to reduce pollen
Hayfever and allergy sufferers rejoice — an Adelaide City councillor has a plan to help you out. Here’s how he’d cut down the amount of pollen in the city air.
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City dwellers would be able to breathe easier under an Adelaide City councillor’s plan to reduce the amount of pollen in the CBD.
Cr Alexander Hyde will tomorrow night ask the council to develop a “sanitisation” strategy to manage pollen in September, October and November in a bid to help people with allergies.
It would focus on areas with London plane trees and exclude the parklands.
Cr Hyde, who wants the strategy implemented by September, said he often received complaints about the amount of pollen in the city.
He suggested pollen be cleaned from roads every two days to help sufferers.
“It happens every season — you see cyclists ride into the city with face masks on because they cannot breathe by the end of their trip,” Cr Hyde said.
“We have to be more diligent and we need to have a methodical approach to saying ‘here are the plane trees, we know the (hay fever) season is here and we need to clean (pollen) up’.
“Given the amount of plane trees we have this is something we need to be managing.”
Allergies can be triggered by almost any flowering tree, however, problematic species include London plane trees, wattles, Norfolk Island hibiscus and bottlebrushes.
Mild allergic reactions include hay fever-like symptoms, while extreme reactions can cause breathing difficulties.
“You have seen cities like Melbourne (that have) recently started pulling out plane trees, which is something I do not want to see us doing,” Cr Hyde said.
“If we don’t get a handle on the problem then (it) won’t be long before people start calling for that.”
There are 1240 plane trees planted in the city across North Tce, Frome Rd and King William, Grote, Grenfell and Hutt streets.
Asthma Australia chief executive Michele Goldman supported the push, but said any investigation and strategy had to be “rigorous”.
“If councils are really serious about protecting citizens and ensuring that their lives aren’t made a misery through symptoms, we would only applaud those efforts,” Mrs Goldman said.
Yasmin Cinelli, of Valley View, said the proposal would be worthwhile.
“It would make it easier for people with hay fever to be in the city, without having to take heaps of tissues in their pockets,” Miss Cinelli, 23, said.
Adelaide City Council staff said if the proposal was supported it would “conduct further investigations”.
The Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy was contacted for comment.