DUMPING BENZINE TINS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume L, Issue 40025, 19 November 1929, Page 2

DUMPING BENZINE TINS.

IN ALIM DRAIN

MATTER TO BE INVESTIGATED.

At last night’s meeting of the Moutoa Drainage Board, Mr. B. G. Gower reported that someone had deposited fifty burnt benzine tins in the Main Drain which was a serious matter and he considered the Board (should take some steps to find out. the culprit. Air. W. E. Barber (chairman of ' Menawatu County / Council) .-/aid the Board was not the only body that had been troubled with this particular offence. Apparently there had been an epidemic of motor lorry ifires in the district in which cargoes of benzine had gone up in smoke. Quite recently a lorry laden with benzine caught tiro near Cairnarvon. Some days later the remains of the lorry were removed but the tins ’ were left heaped up on the roadside. The County traffic inspector had taken the matter up with the lorry owned* with the result that the tins .disappeared. The next day, however, when Air. Barber was driving past his property at Motuiti, some ten miles south of where the fire had occurred, ho noticed a burnt, benzine tin deposited in one of his paddocks which seemed strangely familiar. His suspicions were aroused and continuing on his way to Sandon he kept a good watch out and every few hundred yards along the highway ho discovered a (burnt benzine tin until he came to the scene of the fire at Carnarvon where there was not a tin to be seen. The owner bad evidently adopted a simple means of getting rid of tlie fins by piling them on a loitry and dumping one every here and there along the road. The matter was again taken up by the traffic inspector with the result that the culprit had to gather up every one of the tins. AVliaf became of them after that he did not know, but it would be interesting to find out if the tins found in the drain v. ere the same ones.

Mjr. J. Chrystall (chairman nf the Board) facetiously remarked that the lorry owner might have done more good 'by dropping the tins into the pot holes along the Foxton-Sandon highway. It was reported that a lorry load of' burnt benzine tins had been dumped on the roadway outside the Borough rubbish depot.

Mr. B. 0. Gower said that there was another heap of burnt benzine tins on the highway between the Main Drain and the Whirokpio load while Mr. Barber said there was another pile at Baincsse, all I lie result of ireeent lorry fires. The chairman said it looked as if the Board would have to erect a sign post at the drain intimating that the waterway was not a rubbish depot.

It was decided to refer the matter to the Manawatu County Council traffic inspector for immediate investigation.