Dumped bricks

Press, 23 November 1981, Page 16

Dumped bricks

Sir,—On several occasions (day and evening) I have seen people stopping by the Bexley tip to take some of the bricks that have been dumped there. At times a council worker has stopped them and during the evening it appears someone is employed expressly for this purpose. Now I know one must not scavenge on the tip but what a waste of good bricks and ratepayers’ money paying someone to “protect them” only to have them bulldozed to dust later. The bricks taken are probably to make a wall or path and this makes more sense than the council seems to have. At the’ moment there are a lot of buildings being demolished in Christchurch 7 } and I suppose ’ its not worth the demolition contractors’ time, to sell the bricks so that is why they are being dumped. When the city is getting so desperate for dumping areas ’ isn’t, it crazy to fill Bexley with perfectly usable bricks: — Yours, etc.,

B. B. JOHNSON. November 9, 1981.

[Mr P. G. Scoular, Deputy General Manager and city Engineer, replies: "The concrete and bricks from the demolition of city buildings are being used to build the foundations for the reading system associated with the recent opening of the. new South Brighton Bridge. By using this material which is delivered to Bexley at no cost to the council, instead of purchasing the more commonly used river gravels at $4 to $5 per cubic metre, the roads are being built for a fraction of the ocsts of conventional construction. A security firm is employed to patrol the landfill boundaries after normal tipping hours to prevent indiscriminate dumping and scavenging. Scavenging of any material is discouraged, at Bexley in the interests of public health and safety, and this inlcudes the removal of bricks from the demolition fill areas.”]