REFUSE DISPOSAL

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 60, 8 September 1931, Page 10

REFUSE DISPOSAL

THE BRADFORD SYSTEM

INOFFENSIVE DUMPS

TEIAL IN WELLINGTON

The collection and disposal of city waste have worried municipalities the world over, for the work is costly— waste is piled on top of waste if the wrong system is followed—and frequently tho results are unsatisfactory from the point of view of public health. Wellington's system has until fairly recently centred about its destructor, at Clyde quay, but some years ago doubts arose whether the plan was economical, and a long report was brought down, suggesting various rearrangements to lower working costs. More recently a "masticator,'-' which system had. proved very satisfactory in one of the Auckland boroughs, was purchased and set up on tho sandhills at Eongotai, and additional tips and burning dumps were created, generally —invariably, in fact—in the face of considerable opposition from residents round about. STEAM FROM RUBBISH. The destructor is, of course, not merely a refuse incinerator, for the rubbish is consumed in special furnaces, helped along with coal, and the heat is used for the generation of steam to operate the big compressors which are an essential part of the city's sewerage system. Something like £2000 per annum is saved in coal or power which would be consumed were the compressors not so operated. Against that advantage is the fact that long hauls are necessary to keep the destructor furnaces fed with rubbish. It was to save these hauls that the masticator was set up at Rongotai, and tho system there was—for the masticator has been closed down now for household refuse to bo put through an electrically operated plant which pounded it up to a wettish mass which was spread as a surfacing over the levelled sand area. It was said that this stuff would have quite a fair fertiliser value, but that was hardly borne out in fact. Power charges, labour, and the carting away and burying of tins and glass, which would not go through the pounders, added up to a pretty stiff sum, and recently it was decided to discontinue the plant and to tip the refuse. OLD TIPS AND RATS. Modern tips are very different from the old style rat farms, of which the early John street tip was not half a bad example. The Pied Piper would have had a full day's work at that old tip; in fact, would probably have had to call in assistant pipers. The stuff was simply dumped and the nuisance was real. The next step was to establish burning tips, but there were plentiful objections to these, mostly well founded The covering of each day's tipping was evolved and a much more satisfactory result was obtained, but not an ideal result. A LEAD FEOM BRADFORD. Quite recently Bradford, England has evolved a tip and cover plan which appears to satisfy the authorities, and also nearby residents, as being economical, very cleanly, and bringing about real improvement in the levelling of previously waste ground. The City Council here has been making inquiries of the Bradford system, and this morning members of the Works Committee viewed a specially taken film of the Bradford system, the Publicity Department's studio being kindiy placed at their disposal. In short, the system is that each load is dumped and roughly sorted in the raking over. Tins are placed at the foot of the working face and filled with soil, bottles are broken, paper is placed low on the face, and at once a covering of two or three inches of clay is spread over the lot. .. The result is that a fairly sohd mass is built, and the whole consolidates, with no voids for vermin very quickly. An essential point is that the Bradford dumps are built up ■from tho tip bottom, not formed by rolling the rubbish downhill to form a loose and hideous slope below. The system is being tried at Central Park, and a visit was paid by the committee. The work has gone ahead sufficiently to show how the terraces are built up from the bottom, and though a good many hundreds of tons of very assorted trade and household rubbish have been tipped and covered there, the place has a thoroughly clean appearance. The newly-made ground is well enough consolidated to take heavy lorries, and as the work goes ahead the one-time deep gully will bo levelled off and formed into a useful playground, suitable for bowling, tennis, or croquet. These are merely the main features of the Bradford system, and many valuable details were brought out by the film, as to types of vehicles, methods of working the tip faces, and so on. Other sections illustrated the very real city improvements that had been made. The film was not a "talkie," and therefore the complaints of residents, if any, were not featured, but judging from, the thoroughly cleanly appearance of the tip faces these would not be many. The Bradford system is not a complete answer to all refuse collection problems, but it certainly appears to solve the haulage question, for numerous suburban tips are possible without, seemingly, much objection, from the health point of view, and eventually the made ground may be put to good city use.