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110
The total quantity of house refuse removed from occupied houses
in the Borough to the destructor by the Council's contractors during
the year 1912. amounted to 39,429 tons 4 cwt. 3 qrs. During the
first quarter of the year the price paid by the Borough Council
to the contractors for both divisions was 4s. 4½d. ; during the remainder
of the year the prices were, for the North Division 5s. 6½d.
per ton, and for the South Division 5s. 6d. per ton. The total cost
for this removal for the whole year amounted to £10,189 17s. 7d.
As stated above, the house refuse after removal is conveyed
to the Borough destructor where it is destroyed by fire. The cost
for this destruction of the above quantity of refuse is calculated
by the Electrical Engineer, who is in charge of the destructor,
to be £6,449, the total cost for removal and destruction being
£16,638 17s. 7d. Distributing this cost over the estimated population
of the Borough, it amounts to rather more than 1s. 5¾d. per
head.
The cost of destruction appears very high, but this is partly
due to the peculiar method adopted of transferring the refuse
from the vans to the furnace. The method is briefly, as follows
The refuse on arrival at the destructor works is shovelled out of
the vans into large hoppers placed below the ground level. From
this the refuse is lifted by buckets fixed on an endless chain driven
by electricity to a large chamber situated about 20 feet above the
furnaces. From there it passes partly by gravity to shoots leading
to the feed holes of the furnaces. But here manual labour is
employed to drag the refuse down the shoots to the feed hole. The
whole of the refuse burnt is raised first of all in a most expensive
way, i.e.—in small quantities at a time to a great height, whence
it must, as already stated, be drawn by manual labour to the leed
hole. If instead of this complicated manipulation, the refuse were
carried to a platform adjacent to the furnace feed holes, the cost
of destruction would be considerably less.