ELIMINATING DUST

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 109, 1 February 1934, Page 4

ELIMINATING DUST

New Road Preparation Now in Use VALUE OF MCI PRODUCT The fact that a street of average breadth a quarter of a mile in length can be treated with the new MCI bitural solution, and made effective against the dust nuisance, is a discovery not to .be lightly dismissed. Grey-toned macadam streets which have been “browned” by this process during the past month appear to be holding up well to the hammer of the traffic, while the people living on streets so treated are delighted that the city corporation has devised some means of eliminating the dust nuisance. Bitural is a tar product that is being produced in Wellington at the Miramar works of the Wellington Gas Company, Received warm from these works, the product is mixed under heat with light and heavy oils in a certain proportion, and is sent out hot to the locality where it is to be used. From the tank it rung into a boiler, from which it is ejected under air pressure through sprays on to the macadamfaced road, from a vehicle which moves forward at a walking pace during the process. The mixture sinks into the road surface to a depth of up to an inch, and in the process the constituent oils soak into the dust, the grit, and the metal, and bind the whole into a firm dustless surface, over which the traffic may pass within twenty-four to thirty hours. The value of this product has been fully appreciated by the city engineer and officers acting under his direction, with the result that many streets at Berhampore, Lyall Bay, Korori, Brooklyn have been much improved by an application of MCI. It is now proposed to try the new mixture on school playgrounds. The, mixture is believed to be just as effective on clay as it is on macadam, and already the Hataitai school ground has received a coating, and it is proposed to treat the playground of the Worser Bay school in the same way. Both grounds are exposed to high winds, and anything that can be done to lay the dust must be considered a benefit to the district and a consideration for the children attending such schools.

One of the chief reading improvements effected recently in Wellington East is the regrading and widening of Awa Road. This road follows the line of the old track from Worser Bay, made in the early ’forties when the pilots used to live close down to the water in the bay, and the only land access to the place was across the Crawford estate in Miramar and over the hill to Worser Bay. Awa Road was a dangerously graded road which motorists had to take very gingerly, but now it has been graded uniformly throughout its length, the corners have been extended and rendered less acute, and, while it is still not a road to be taken at any speed, it is 100 per cent, better than it was.

In the formation of its surface the engineer in charge was fortunate enough to discover a good deposit of shingle and sand in a Seatoun. street. As this was the very commodity that was required to give some body to the surface of the improved clay road, he had no compunction in commandeering supplies and replacing them with clay from the Awa Road excavations. Thu.-, without robbing the street of anything material to its character, ideal material needed to give the new road a weariix surfaSe was secured in the immediate vicinity. It is understood that this surface is now to be given a coating of MCI, which is estimated to make it behave for a period of two years. •