We recently received the following enquiry from a lady in Bookham.

"Hi!  I was wondering, what do you think of the practice of burning leaves?  I personally feel they should be composted and burning of leaves is a form of air pollution.  Do you know what the rules are about burning leaves???  Only after 6pm?"

I replied as follows. 

The MVDC website says this:
"There is no law against having bonfires. If the smoke causes a nuisance the Council can act to abate the nuisance. Smoke from garden bonfires in a residential area can seriously affect the enjoyment of other premises, contribute to local air pollution levels and, in some locations, reduce visibility on nearby roads.  If materials are dry and burn quickly creating little smoke, then there is usually little problem, providing the smoke does not blow directly towards occupied premises. Damp vegetation, however, does not burn well as it produces large volumes of smoke and smoulders for long periods of time. The burning of this type of waste causes most complaints and so it should be disposed of in other ways.  The Council's policy with regard to bonfires is to seek the co-operation of residents in avoiding nuisance from bonfires by asking that garden waste and other material is composted or taken to a civic amenity site.

For further information please telephone 01306 879234 or e-mail: env.health@molevalley.gov.uk"

So you can burn leaves at any time provided it does not cause a nuisance.  I agree with you that it's bad practice at any time.  Pollution as normally understood means something that causes immediate, local health risk.  In that sense a fire of dry leaves is OK because they burn cleanly and rapidly to CO2 and water vapour with no smoke.  However any fire, no matter how clean, contributes to climate change.  Also in this case burning destroys material that could otherwise can be used to improve soil quality.  So it's definitely a bad thing.  In practice the leaves very seldom are dry and so produce loads of smoke which is both a nuisance and a health risk.

Any gardener will say that if you've got a lot of leaves, leave them in a suitable container like a builder's bag to turn into leaf mould.  Smaller quantities should go in the compost.  If you have neither, get a brown bin from MVDC and use that.  The material in the brown bin is composted and sold to farmers.

Derek Smith