DUMPING GARBAGE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 17948, 28 November 1932, Page 5

DUMPING GARBAGE

INQUIRIES IN CANBERRA PRECEDENT FROM U.S.A. CANBERRA, Nov. 34. Tlio drafting of Federal legislation to prevent the dumping of garbage at sea is being considered by the Commonwealth Crown Law offices at the request of Mr. Jennings, M.P., who has taken action at the request of the Randwick Council, following complaints of the pollution of Sydney beaches. Mr. Jennings has gathered information concerning the position in the United States of America, where the Supreme Court recently decided that the dumping of garbage at sea must cease. For years most of New York’s garbage was loaded on to scows, towed 10 to 22 miles out to sea ,and dumped. A few years ago hundreds of sealed bottles, each containing an addressed postcard, were dropped into the sea at the regular dumping grounds under the different conditions of wind and tide. A few bottles apparently floated into the Gulf Stream and crossed the Atlantic to Portugal, France, England, and Ireland, but many were stranded on Long Island and New Jersey beaches. It was brought out in evidence'in a subsequent legal action between the State of New Jersey and New York that, in 1929, 500,000 tons of refuse were dumped at sea. The court declared that New Jersey was entitled to an injunction, but that New York should bo given a reasonable time in which to provide incinerators. The court finally determined that the dumping of refuse ai sea off New York must cease by June I, 1933.