FISH OFFAL

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 23, 28 January 1915, Page 3

FISH OFFAL

HOW TO DISPOSE OP IT HAS IT COMMERCIAL- VALUE? One of the difficulties under which suppliers of fish in Wellington labour was put before his Worship the Mayor (Mr. J. P. Luke) by a deputation of fish merchants yesterday. Mr. Corrie, 'manager of the Hawkes Bay Fisheries Co., said they were placed under a great difficulty in regard to the disposal of fish offal. Mr. Morton (City Engineer) said some years ago that they should insist on the fishermen gutting the fish. ' That would be a good idea, provided they had the facilities ; but when they had catches of from 1200 to 1300 warehou, as they had yesterday, they had no chance of doing that sort of thing at the bay. It would take them all day to gut the fish, and by the time it reached town it would have suffered in condition very considerably. The trouble was that the destructor would not admit the offal, and they had to despatch it out to Island Bay, to be sent out into Cook Strait — which was not a very easy matter when a southeasterly was blowing, with the result that on occasions the stuff remained on the beach generally to the annoyance of the people who lived there. Besides that, there was the expense to be considered. He thought the council might take the matter into consideration, Decause a great deal of what was destroyed was of considerable commercial value as manure. In the Old Country, he understood, the offal was regarded as of considerable value. Mr. J. Smith/ a retail dealer, -said that on Monday he sent some 601b to 801b of offal to the destructor, and it was refused, Eventually it cost him 17s 6d to have it sent out to sea. Sxr. Milesi said that when they had the old destructor no objection was made to the Bending along of any quantity of offal, which was now refused by the new destructor. Mr. Corrie said there was a general demand that fish should be sold at a reasonable price, but these expenses did not tend to improve the prospects of any lessening of the cost. He had heard from the Italian fishermen that if they were compelled to gut the warehou it would not be worth their while to catch any quantity, and they would charge higher pricee than at present. The City Engineer (Mr. Morton) said the trouble was due to the very larg«a quantities that wefe sent in to the destructor, and which the destructor could not cope with. If the 6tuff were allowed to he a-boufc the yards it would rapidly become a nuisance. The Mayor «aid he came from a part of the Ola Country where hundreds of tons of fish, offal were sent away as manure. The City Council had to look at this matter from the point of view of the public interest. The destructor could not cope with these big rushes of fish offal, and he could see no better way of disposing' of it at present than by taking it out to sea* It was a matter for the City Council to consider whether ite disposal should remain a charge on the business, or whether the council should take some other action. He had suggested to Mr. Morton that they should build a small destructor to handle the offal. That was a matter for the council. Mr. Morton added that the destructor was taking the ordinary fiah offal which came from the chops. The only things they barred were the heads and offal from very large fish. They had always taken small quantities, and it was only when the consignments were so large that they became a nuisance that the alteration had to be made. Had the deputation consulted^ any business company about the disposal of the offal? The stuff they got from burning the offal was sold by the corporation, so it would be eeen that it had some value. The deputation answered that it would make enquiries in that direction, and the Mayor closed the interview by stating that he would put the position clearly before the council.