RUBBISH COLLECTION

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 8, Issue 9, 19 September 1944, Page 5

RUBBISH COLLECTION

MUST FACE THE POSITION

STATEMENT BY MAYOR

"The time has come when we must face up to the fact that Ave should have a rubbish collection in this town " said His Worship the: Mayor at last week's meeting of. the Borough Avhcn a letter from the, local Health Inspector (Mr A. R. Knights) recommending certain improvements in the disposal of rubbish and the control of the Borough 'dump' was. read. The letter, which was more of a report on the position stated that a refuse, tip very often can be said to be a nuisance chiefly through a combination of the following causes: Tipping face too wide; lack of control over indiscriminate dumping of refuse and rotten foodstuffs; too many old tanks ; etc. not flattened out or filled, afid misuse and waste of good covering material. With the Whakatane tip in its present state rats found an ideal home, and Hies an ideal breeding ground. The present voluntary collection would be of some small value but during the remainder of the week, dumping would continue to take place from business premises as well as from some private houses. Thus there would always be trouble until a proper collection with full control over tipping was established.

With, the approaching hot weather stated the letter every endeavour must be made to prevent and conr trol fly breeding it being generally known that flies carry and spread germs of typhoid, dj-sentary, summer sickness and allied diseases. The fewer the the less chance of an outbreak of disease. With virtually every householder burying refuse in his back yard breeding grounds for both rats and flies are established. With the "refuse collec-

tion covering the whole Borough putrescible matter would be removed from households treated and

r covered properly, and the rat and fly population in Whakatane would decrease.

The following suggestions were submitted by the Health Inspector:

(1) The width of the present face to be halved, and tipping to be done only on Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays between 8 a.m. and noon. A man to be on duty and direct tipping outside the recognised hours' a small charge (2/6 'or 5/~) to be made for every load dumped. Screens would have, to be provided to prevent paper etc. blowing about. (2) That a flat annual rate of say £1 be put on every house and £1 5s or £1 10s on all business premises. A weekly collection could be organised for the, residential area and a twice weekly one for the business area. The present tip site could be used and a large area of waste land filled in t or the, present tip, cleared of rats> and flies covered and sealed and a new site started. Tipping would have to be done on the "controlled tipping" system whereby refuse, is deposited in layers systematically and all tins, flattened or filled so that no air spaces, are left. Foodstuffs etc. are placed on the. bottom or in the middle while ashes or dry material are spread on top. By this method tipping is done on one face only the material being covered with roughly a foot of soil. Vehicles passing over the, dump pack the material while the heat generated is sufficient to kill any ( fly lavae and to destroy organic matter in a reasonably short time. No air spaces are, left to provide breeding places for rats.. In conclusion, the report stated that although it may be said that the initial cost of the refuse dump would be too high one must be started soon, as the existing condi-. tions were viewed with grave concern by the Health Department. On the Mayor's* motion the report was referred to the Works Corngating it fully. ' mittee for the purpose, of investi-