Everything-Including The Kitchen Sink'

Northern Advocate, 28 August 1947, Page 4

Everything-Including The Kitchen Sink'

WHANGAREI RUBBISH

(By S. C. Messenger) HAVE you ever lost anything in the household rubbish tin? If you have not then you must be numbered among the more lucky ones for it seems that at some time or other most people find that they have deposited some valuables in the container. In many cases they have been lucky enough to recover them.

A short time ago a Wellington businessman discovered that some £SOO of his savings had gone to the City dump. Rakes, shovels, and yes—even bare hands were used in the search among the rubbish and finally the notes were unearthed. He, too, was a lucky person!

The Whangarei borough dump cannot compare with its Auckland city counterpart in regard to size but the variety of discarded materials deposited there is just as great. Whether it be that of a city of 250,000 or a town area of only a few hundred souls the rubbish dump fulfils a most important purpose. Usually it is a discarded area suitable only for one thing—the dumping of discarded discards. A CLEAN JOB

is the present-day life of a tyre made to stretch. DISAPPOINTED GARDENERS ? Apparently there are disappointed gardeners in Whangarei. On the day of the visit a considerable and varied number of nursery catalogues were to be seen ready to be burned.

Nearby was an old broken spade. Perhaps the gardener broke it in trying to dig his garden in the middle of a Northland dry summer. Or then again ho mav hav*> broken it in sheer desperation when he saw the illustration of what his crop of carrots or parsnips should have been and the result when his small boy pulled it from the ground and devoured it. On the other hand the large amount of hedge trimmings and portions of garden plants which are dumped suggest that it is every bit as likely that many gardeners found that the climate produced strong, sturdy and speedy growth. COVERED WITH EARTH

Many people imagine that the work in a dump or destructor fed by the multitude of a great city would be dirty and unpleasant. The true facts are just the reverse.

High pressure steam keeps the flies and dirt away and it is reported to be most unusual to see one fly during the time that the Auckland city dump handles the 50-odd tons of refuse every day. As yet Whangarei has not a destructor of the city type. Nevertheless, each morning as the rubbish collection trucks arrive at the Cameron Street dump a critical eye surveys the rubbish. That to be burnt is placed in one place and that which, for a variety of reasons, cannot be burnt in another. It takes the trucks the greater part of a day to make a collection throughout the borough area. When an extraordinary collection of rubbish is hold the job is l likely to extend into weeks.

“We handle everything—including the kitchen sink,” was the remark of] one man when asked to comment on the type of rubbish usually collected during an extraordinary collection. “Once we used to pick up quite a number of empties—now the higher values ruling for these apparently make the consumers more wary of pWtjrif? thorn in the dustbin.” The shortage of beer bottles at the dump was apparently compensated for by the presence of bottles of every other kind, size and shape which were to be seen among the burning rubbish.

Nearby a cab of a motor truck—bearing the USA letters apparently a relic of the war, lies partly submerged in tins, old tinware, crockery and the like. USEFULNESS PAST Old car bodies or parts abound at the dump. However, it is safe to say that they are all past their usefulness. At any rate with the present shortage of parts it is unlikely that anything pertaining to a motor would be thrown away unless the owner was well satisfied that it could never be used again. One or two old tyres could be seen on the outskirts of the dumped rubbish. On examination these were found to be very old and very, very worn. As a sign of the times, the collectors agreed that to pick up an old tyre was now a very rare occasion.

Pre-war and pre-rationing, tyres were quite common arrivals at the dump but just as rubber stretches, so

But to return from the suspected to the realistic. What happens to the rubbish after it has been dumped and burned has no doubt puzzled all but the very wise. After being burnt the area is left for a time and then it is gradually filled over with earth. Already a rather considerable area has been treated in this way and it is not too far to look to the future when all of that damp swamp land immediately behind the Whangarei railway station is no more. In its place will be a large and commanding area of dry, flat land suitable for building sites. Perhaps in years to come—enthusiasts will say not so many years—the present position of the Whangarei dump will be graced by a fine multistoreyed edifice, a memorial to progress built on the solid foundations of discards and throw-outs from those who have passed before.