CLEANING A CITY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21616, 7 October 1933, Page 15

CLEANING A CITY

MELBOURNE'S LARGE STAFF 200 MILES OF STREETS Keeping the city of Melbourne clean may seem I<> be a light task to the casual passerby, yet it was announced recently that the cost to the City Council last year amounted to £15,000. This sum represents the working costs of a. large and highly efficient staff of cleaners, who are constantly at work, winter and summer, removing lmllions of paper-bags, tram tickets, cigarettcbutts, apple-cores, and all manner of rubbish from the streets. Every day tons of rubbish are Hung carelessly about the city streets, says tho Argus, and every day this rubbish has to be removed ' neatly, thoroughly, and cheaply. The work of the cleansing stall ol the City Council is not light. In the area which they cover, including the city and inner suburbs, there arc 200 miies of streets, with an area of 0,500,000 square yards. At 6 a.m. every day the stall' of cleaners begins its task of sweeping, flushing, ami shovelling to prepare the thoroughfares for tho day's traffic. The streets of the city proper are cleaned daily, and those of tho surrounding areas once every second day. Besides four large motoisweepers there are nine motor-trucks, two powerful flushing machines, two pumping plants to remove the rubbish and liquid from the drain pits, 50 horses and drays, and an army of sweepers with hand trucks. In all 200 men are kept continuously employed. It has not been found profitable m Melbourne to sort out scrap-iron or old bottles from the rubbish collected from streets and houses, as is done in some other cities, but it has its uses. Some of it is incinerated, but some is collected for top-dressing the city parks. Thousands of tons of rubbish are being used to reclaim the old West Melbourne swamp for use as a railway siding.