BRADFORD SYSTEM

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 53, 31 August 1934, Page 9

BRADFORD SYSTEM

HASTINGS ADOPTING IT

TURNING WASTE TO VALUE

NOT JUST DUMPING

j A few weeks ago the chairman of the works committee of the. Hastings Borough Council and tho borough engineer visited Wellington to inquire into various municipal activities in the city and particularly into the working of the Bradford system of refuse disposal. Reports from Hastings suggest that they wero impressed with the effectiveness of the system and that the system will be adopted there.

*■ Prom the remarks made at a rcecnt piiblie meeting at which various city 3 affairs were discussed it was evident that there is still some misunderstanding of what this system is. One speaker ;" asked what all the fuss was about, for U Wellington, to his memory, had been dumping rubbish into gullies for years and years past; for instance, at the old John Street tip. e> That is so; for years and years Weli lington did dump rubbish, into gullies, 3 but to tell a Bradford system naan that I he is jijst dumping rubbish is to hurt t his feelings badly. Dumping rubbish means just that—tins, cans, bottles, "speck" fruit, garbage, any old thing, - food for rats, homes for rats, smells for 7 the neighbourhood; in fact, the old 1 John Street tip. The present system 3 takes the same rubbish (but not stale - fish and tho other too powerful trade 3 refuse), but takes it in a definite 3 fashion. 1 METHOD OF WORKING. '■ Tho tip is built up in regular layers, about sis feet deep. Tins are placed, 1 bottom down, on the working floor and 1 are filled with earth. Bottles and crocks 1 go to tho working floor, too, and are J smashed. A layer of garbage is spread - evenly and at once covered with a layer ! of soil} at no time is tho garbage ex- ■ posed to the air except when work is • in progress. The interlaying of refuse ' and soil or clay results in a rapid ' breaking down of organic matter by ' bacterial and chemical action, with the 1 generation of fairly high temperatures, ! and within a few months the whole mass 1 is transformed into a solid mass of soil, ' with glass and metal buried deeply. 1 Layer by layer the gully is filled in. ' The method of working discourages ; rats, for the face steadily advances and the chemical action generates heat suf--1 ficient to make burrowing tropical work even, for a, rat. Tho claims made by English authorities that refuse disposal on this system is in no May offensive—in Bradford the grounds about the main children's hospital were levelled in this way, practic--1 ally up to the hospital walls —has been well borne- out iv Wellington in the ease of one of the experimental tips, upon which a dwelling has now been erected. That would hardly have been possible at the old John Street tip. The main Bradford tip is at Chaytor Street, where there is gully enough to toko Wellington's refuse for many years to come (at present only Karovi and Northland and Kelburn refuse is going there), but it is so far down from tho road that not many pcoplu know what is being done. USELESS GROUND MADE GOOD. The other big tip is at the old Lyall Bay quarry. In tho course of many years the quarrying of rock for roading purposes dug a great hole, and over some more years tons of old iron were dumped into the hole to make the wholeplace hideous. About a year ago the quarry was taken in hand, and today tho greater part of the sito has been levelled and most of the metal junk dump has been hidden, though, because the earlier dumping was just plain dumping, it is expected that a good deal of subsidence will take place. Possibly another year's work will clean up this area and transform it from worse than waste ground into a level area ready for grassing and whatever use the reservos department may think beet. The present intention is to continue the work on the other sido of the roadway, and to level tho rough ground to the edge of tho rocks for grassing and picnicking.

Sucli of tha cablo news on tills nasa as is so headed lias nppcuted in "Tho Times" and 1? cabled to Australia and Now Zealand t|y snecial permission. [t should be uuderstoofl tha.t, tho opinions aj'R not thosn or ''Tho Times"' unless expiesaly stated U) be so. '.