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95
In spite of adverse criticism I am fully convinced, after the six years'
practical success of the electrolytic process of production adopted in
Poplar that there is no more suitable means of producing a cheap, clean
and effective chlorine solution. A solution of hypochlorite of magnesium
is not caustic, it is non-poisonous, and is the least destructive to clothing
of all the hypochlorites. It has the advantage over phenol (carbolic acid)
disinfectants, there being no need to dispense it in coloured, particular
shaped and specially labelled bottles, applicants requiring fluid are
consequently enabled to bring their own bottles, which provides a great
saving to the rate payers. Figures have been given in many of my
former Annual Reports respecting the cost of distribution of carbolic acid
disinfectants, and therefore need not be repeated. The process of making
a hypochlorite solution as carried out in Poplar is quite simple Open
the taps, switch on the electric current and the disinfectant is at once
available.
Since the installation of the plant 200,000 gallons of fluid (at an average
strength of 5 grammes of available chlorine per litre—at this strength the
fluid is much too strong for domestic purposes and requires diluting) have
been made for the sum of £380, out of which amount £212 were for
electricity, leaving a sum of £168 for raw material, including water.
Respecting the £212 for electricity, an advantage accrues to the Borough
from this item of expenditure because £35, or 16 per cent., of this sum is
clear profit.* It is quite possible a saving could be made upon the raw
material, but as the plant is worked absolutely by unskilled men a rule of
thumb must be adopted. If skilled labour were employed, the £168, or
an average of £28 per annum, for six years would soon be swallowed up.
It is obvious that municipal authorities adjacent to the sea, and owners of
ships, would not require raw material, as the electrolyte—sea-water—is
always at their doors, f
* Adverse critics and experts will probably carp and cavil at the oost of an
electrolytic disinfectant when electricity is so cheap that a smokeless metropolis and
other cities and towns exist, lighting, heating, and motive power being all effected by
electricity obtained from municipal transforming stations—local main generating
stations being shut down—supplied with extra high-tension current generated at the
coalfields which so far as the metropolis is concerned are less than 150 miles away.
The same remarks would apply should a main generating electricity station be installed
at a port near the metropolis where there is plenty of room for stacking sea-borne coal,
and the cables transmitting the extra high-tension current laid along the railways.
† As to the value of a hypochlorite made from sea-water by means of electrolysis
the following facts ought to be sufficient:—