Into the Incinerator
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original article: http://www.rochestersubway.com/topics/2014/03/rochester-garbage-incinera...
Last week we looked at some photos of the Beebee Station power plant at High Falls. That post drew some comments about another interesting facility nearby which is sometimes confused with Beebee; the City’s old garbage incinerator plant on Falls Street .
Thanks to a group of intrepid urban explorers—Benjamin Colburn , Brandon Davis
, Sean Galbraith
, Andrew Hiltz
, and Tom Maszerowski
—we can take a look inside…
The original incinerator plant was built in 1911 by Decarie Incinerator Company of Minneapolis. The photo above shows the older facility which was demolished around 2012. The taller brick building and smoke stack that remain today (shown below) were built in the 1940s.
The plant was decommissioned and taken over by Delco (an automotive parts manufacturing subsidiary of General Motors) in the late 1950s, and eventually abandoned sometime around 1990.
According to this 1912 issue of Municipal Journal the incinerator first began operating in February, 1912…
In a 1915 survey and appraisal of City services, an account of the plant’s operations was written in great detail:
Material per 1,000 persons 43.3 tons
Total valuable portions reclaimed 3,146 tons
Percent reclaimed 30.3%
Material reclaimed per 1,000 persons 13.1 tons
The plant had three sections with three distinct functions: unloading/storage, sorting/baling, and incineration.
In the sorting & baling section trash was separated into items that could be reclaimed and sold, and rubbish to be burned. The 1915 report lists several materials that could be reclaimed including brass, copper, lead, zinc, iron, tin cans, pewter, aluminum, and glass.
the section on the conveyor to the incineration section where it is burned.
The survey went on to report on the benefits of the plant:
The survey also pointed to certain operations which should be improved:
Operational issues aside, the same report noted that the plant more than paid for itself and recommended adding additional furnace units.
Related Video:
Many thanks to Benjamin Colburn and Andrew Hiltz
for helping to pull this article together.