The story of the historic Pyrmont Incinerator
Image: Griffin Incinerator in Pyrmont: gatehouse & weighbridge, trucks dumping garbage into pit.
In 1937 an ultra-modern Incinerator opened in Pyrmont.
Designed by the Burley Griffins, this massive rectangular building, capped by a 40 metre smoke stack, could dispatch 11000 cubic metres of rubbish a day – without generating the clouds of ash spewing from all previous incinerators.
That was achieved by adapting a process for melting metals. Similar incinerators were built across Sydney, on a smaller scale, processing a vast amount of Sydney’s rubbish. But air quality standards kept rising, beyond this monumental structure’s capacity, and it closed in 1971.
This architectural marvel could have been renovated for other purposes but it was demolished in 1992, and replaced by apartment buildings, and the site is now a residential complex.
