Its chimney remains a prominent landmark in the southeast of the city and a reminder of a time when you’d needed to have your wits about you when entering Halifax Street. A convoy of Adelaide City Council trucks paid regular visits to this part of town feeding an insatiable monster, which played a key role in the early life of our fair city.

This magnificent thirty five metre chimney was built in 1909 and was part of what was known as the Heenan Patent Refuse Destructor. It was used to incinerate the city rubbish and the rubbish carts came from miles around.

It’s hard to imagine now, but The Destructor was operating until the early 1950s. For more than forty years the bulk of Adelaide's rubbish was brought here until a special committee –set up to investigate alternatives for rubbish disposal – opted for the Wingfield dump in 1952. The Destructor may not have been popular with city residents but it was certainly effective.

The Destructor worked twenty four hours a day and the furnaces produced so much heat that the resultant steam powered an electric generator. In its heyday the generator supplied this whole site. It even supplied excess electricity back to the Adelaide Electric Company which it used to light the nearby streets.

Now the Destructor is a key feature of an inner city development, complete with apartments and a very popular restaurant known as The Greek on Halifax.

 

http://www.postcards-sa.com.au/features/greek_on_halifax.html