June 3 Speaker Report – Jim Happ

Speaker Report — Jim Happ on Geelong’s Municipal Incinerator

You can listen to a reading of this article by clicking the link below:

At our 3 June meeting, Jim Happ delivered a rich and absorbing exploration of a largely forgotten chapter in Geelong’s civic history: the development, operation and legacy of the city’s 1928 municipal garbage incinerator. Although “no photo remains” of the Geelong plant, Jim reconstructed its story through engineering records, comparable facilities and meticulous historical research.

One of his most valuable contributions was resolving the long‑standing uncertainty about the incinerator’s location. Institutional memory had faded, but Jim’s research indicates that the facility stood on the hill above the Balliang Sanctuary in Newtown, just off West Fyans Street and close to Shannon Avenue; a site once central to municipal waste management but now almost entirely forgotten.

Jim set this local story within the broader history of urban sanitation. In 19th‑century Britain, “poor hygiene, no sewers, cisterns dug with the run‑off flowing into the local rivers” created ideal conditions for cholera, typhoid and other deadly diseases. Dr John Snow’s 1854 mapping of cholera cases, followed by the Great Stink of 1858, finally forced London to build a modern sewerage system. Once sewage was addressed, attention turned to rubbish, particularly the rat‑fossicked waste that contributed to outbreaks of bubonic plague. By the early 1900s, cities were turning to incineration as a hygienic alternative to open dumping.

These developments shaped the Australian response. Early systems such as the Meldrum Destructor and Adelaide’s Halifax Street Destructor paved the way for local innovation. In Geelong, the turning point came after the tragic death of a young girl scavenging on an open dump in 1913. The council sought alternatives, but early incinerators were prohibitively expensive at £22,000. It was not until 1928 that engineers John Boadle and Vasilie Trunoff produced a breakthrough: the RICo incinerator, costing just £2,800. By removing the boiler, they created a simpler, safer and more efficient system that “allowed a less skilled person running it with two people, one man and a boy.”

Jim explained the Ipswich layout in detail. Overhead bins dropped rubbish onto drying grates before it moved to the burning chamber, where temperatures reached 950°C. Odours were captured by drawing tipping fumes back into the furnace, and a secondary chamber burned off volatile vapours. A small oil burner was used only to start the process; once the bricks were hot, the system sustained itself.

As demand grew, Boadle and Trunoff partnered with businessman Nisson Leonard‑Kanevsky, who enlisted Walter Burley Griffin to design architecturally refined buildings to house the furnaces. Councils were initially cautious, but attractive buildings, upfront financing and free operator training proved persuasive. Many other municipalities, particularly in Sydney, went on to adopt incinerators that continued to use the techniques pioneered by the RICo design, demonstrating the influence and durability of Boadle and Trunoff’s engineering innovations. By 1938, productivity had soared to 60 cubic yards per shift, at a cost of just one shilling per cubic yard.

Jim then turned to the reasons for the system’s decline. Councils were extremely cost‑conscious, and this often led to short‑sighted operational decisions. Incinerators were designed to run continuously across three shifts in a 24‑hour cycle; doing so kept the bricks at stable temperatures and prevented the cracking, spalling and mechanical failures that plagued intermittently operated plants. But many councils, including Geelong, chose to run them only part‑time to save wages. As Jim noted, had they been operated as designed, “many of the maintenance issues … could have been alleviated.” Combined with the arrival of plastics and the cumulative effects of under‑maintenance, the incinerators were progressively shut down, and by the 1970s the system had disappeared entirely.

Jim concluded with a strikingly passionate discussion of modern waste‑to‑energy plants, like the one planned for Lara, speaking at times with the conviction of an evangelist. He highlighted their strong ecological credentials, their emphasis on sustainability, and the sophisticated systems now used to eradicate odours and dust. He pointed to the large number of such plants operating worldwide as evidence of their maturity and appropriateness. Jim was also candid about the presence of toxic outputs, emphasising that these substances are inherent in garbage itself and that modern plants incorporate well‑established mitigation technologies to manage them safely. Victoria’s proposed Lara plant, he noted, would follow stringent European Union standards.

This was a presentation that blended engineering insight, social history and contemporary relevance. Our thanks to Jim Happ, committee member of the Walter Burley Griffin Society and former metallurgical engineer, for bringing this important story to life and reconnecting us with a forgotten piece of Geelong’s civic infrastructure.