'BURNING' QUESTION

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 252, 25 October 1933, Page 5

'BURNING' QUESTION

BIG CITY'S GARBAGE. SITE FOR INCINERATOR. INTENSE PUBLIC FEELING. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, October 17. Over twelve months ago an attempt was made by the Mosman Council to erect an incinerator at the Spit, the picturesque sandbank which almost bars the approach to Middle Harbour. The residents of Manly and other adjacent suburbs protested at once, on the ground that health and comfort would alike be endangered, and that the natural beauty of the locality would be irretrievably destroyed. The protest was effective, and it seems to have produced far-reach-ing effects throughout the metropolitan area. For ever since then, any suggestion that an'incinerator or a destructor might be erected in any given district has been sufficient to stimulate opposition of the most obstinate kind, and so the City Council has recently found to its cost.

A Jew months ago it was proposed to meet the city's need for garbage destruction on a larger scale by putting up an incinerator in Moore Park. There is already a small destructor there, but the new' incinerator, which was to be located close to it, was to consume five or six times as much rubbish per day. The City Council got some sort of perfunctory permission from the Park trustees to "go ahead," and excavation Tras at once started on the proposed site. Public Inquiry Held. But Moore Park is a great and highly valued public reserve; and it is surrounded on several sides by well-peopled residential areas. As Boon as the alarm was raised that an incinerator was to be put up there, the people who regarded themselves as specially interested made a tremendous onslaught upon the City Council. for thinking of such a thing, and on the trustees for hesitating to forbid it. The City Council was at last 1 , forced to appeal to the Metropolitan

Land Board to hold a public inquiry into the matter, and the board listened for many days to the evidence against the project. Dust and soot and cinders, rats and flies, stench and disease —such were the main heads of the objections voiced by dozens of manufacturers, and butchers and hotelkeepers, and doctors and local householders. The City Council had Dr. Purdy, city health officer, Professor Sutton, professor I of preventive medicine, and Sir Henry Barraclough, professor of engineering, on its side; but the voice of the experts could not prevail over the vehement demonstrations of an alarmed populace. The Land Board, apparently bewildered by the multitude of counsellors, referred the matter to the Government, and Ministers —who usually have their ears to the ground in such cases—refused to hear the experts and decided in favour of "the people." The City Council had already spent about £1000 in preliminary work. It had to spend another £500 in "fighting the case" before the Land Board and the Cabinet, and it expects to spend at least £35,000 on the incinerator, so that it is proving altogether an expensive project. No Suburb Will Have It. But this is by no means the worst or the end of it. The City Council had to find alternatives. There is a small incinerator in Waterloo, which for about £10,000 could be enlarged to cope with the city's requirements; and there is another at Pyrmont, which could be demolished to leave space for a larger one. But the residents in both these districts are resolutely opposed to any increase of the inconveniences that the destructors already cause; and wherever the City Council has turned, it has met the same wall of opposition. In all, no less than 17 separate sites have been discussed, and they have all been "turned down" in succession because of the public outcry. Lord Mayor Hagon confesses that he is almost driven to despair; he regards the popular feeling against destructors as an unreasoning superstition, and is sure that "if we could only get another name for incinerators, something to disguise their purpose, these violent objections would disappear." ! However, as a last expedient, the council hit upon a site at the foot of Brisbane and Pelican Streets —which is to | say, in Surry Hills, and not far from | Oxford Street. It is to be presumed that | the chief recommendation that tliie. area

possesses in the eyes of the City Council is that it has no buildings on it. But it is in the middle of a denselypeopled area and it is only a stone's throw from Oxford Street, the most popular shopping centre in the city; so that nobody expects the proposal to "go through." Alderman Shannon, one of the many demagogues on the City Council, declared that he would fight against an incinerator in Surry Hills so long as he had breath in his body, and, as soon as ever the resolution in favour of this site was carried, a notice of motion to rescind this decision was rushed through. It was supported by Sir Samuel Walder, ex-Lord Mayor, among others, and the whole scheme i? only a tactical move to gain time. An injunction will be taken out against this proposal, and the Lord Mayor hopes that in this way the citizens of Sydney may be induced to realise the difficulties of the council's position.

Dumping at Sea Suggested. Having this little breathing spacc allowed, the City Council is now proceeding to consider an alternative scheme for dumping the city's garbage far out at sea. Some of my readers may remember that last year serious trouble arose at Bondi and Coogee because large quantities of garbage had been washed up on these popular beaches. This, of course, was due to the practice of dumping garbage not far away from the land, and it was the outcry against this abuse that produced the agitation for a large incinerator. But the scheme now under consideration is quite different. Sydney Ferries, Limited, has offered to transport the city refuse in powerful 12-knot vessels at least 15 miles out to sea, where the current would carry it away from the shore —"down to the South Pole,'' one optimist assures us. The company offers a guarantee of £5000 that no garbage wilL drift back to pollute the beaches, and it claims that, by accepting its proposals, the City Council wculd save £45,000 in capital expenditure and £10,000 a year in operating expenses as well.

Altogether it is an extremely difficult problem, for nearly every district is prepared to declare that the erection of an incinerator in it 3 vicinity would be "a menace to public health and an insult to public opinion." But this, I presume, is one of the consequences of allowing or encouraging r city to expand beyond that "million mark" which the peop 1 " of Sydney were so proud of reaching.