DESTRUCTION OF REFUSE

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 21051, 30 December 1933, Page 18

DESTRUCTION OF REFUSE

KEEPING THE CITY CLEAN AN KCOXOMICAL PROCESS Thousands oi householders ■throughout the city and its suburbs place their refuse cans by the roadside to be emptied at stated periods, but probably few of those who take the empty cans in again after the garbage truck has passed realise what happens to the refuse they are glad to be rid of. Ashes, tins, bottles, old shoes, and a hundred and one other things go the way of all refuse —to the refuse destructor in Gloucester street, thousands of truck loads being carted there during the year. Trucks were arriving in the destructor yard, and other trucks were leaving for the rubbish tip with all that is left of the city refuse after it has passed through the destructor, when a reporter of "The Press" called there yesterday to see what happened to the refuse after it had been carted away from those thousands of garden gates in the city. A small number of men were busy in the destructor house, but the work that was going on indicated that the tons of refuse received for treatment would melt away as the day wore on. The trucks arriving with refuse were driven up an inclined roadway to the second floor of the building and the refuse was tipped above the Meldrum two-unit destructor. One furnace below was going full blast, but the other is under repair at the present time. The refuse is dumped on to the dead hearth of the destructor below as it is required and is pushed from there on to the firebars as the force-draught fire eats it away. The fires require a fair amount of attention, but in proportion to the work they do the attention is small. , Power Generated. The two destructors are capable of dealing with 90 tons of house refuse in a day and the heat generated by the roaring furnaces is not wasted. The cost to the city for the collection of refuse must be considerable, but once it is collected it has to yield a small return. The flames from the furnaces are passed through the smoke tubes of boilers, of which there are lour in the destructor house, and the steam from these boilers is used for heating the water in the tepid baths and can be used to drive two 200 k.w. generators, which are at present used as a stand-by plant. Refuse gathered from th-j city is very varied in character, and at times articles that have not become refuse are found in the garbage cans. Sometimes these articles are claimed, but generally they pass on from their owners who may never learn that something of value has been dropped into the dust-bin. Apart from articles that will obviously not benefit by contact with the furnace (ires, everything goes .into the flames. Small tins are not reduced to any appreciable extent by this fiery treatment, but they are made hygienic if nothing else, and so the fire claims them.

Cleansed by Fire. When the furnaces are cleaned ail that remains of the oddments of human use and wjar and the dust of the homes of the city is shovelled into trucks to be taken to the rubbish dump, and the reduction that is made while the steam as generated by the burning of the rubbish can be gauged by the fact that of the 21,788 loads of refuse tipped into the destructor during last, year only 5723 loads of clinker and 449 loads of tins had to be carted away again. The destructor is of value to the City Council because it reduces the bulk of the refuse that has to be disposed of and because it gives a return from the refuse by generating steam power, but its greatest •service is in destroying any disease germs that may lurk in the dust gathered here and there. All that passes through the furnaces of the destructor is sterilised beyond a shadow of doubt and what is left can be dumped without any risk of it carrying infection of any kind.