First Commonwealth Conference on Public Health Engineering (1927)

Summary

The first "Commonwealth Conference on Public Health Engineering" held at Kelvin Hall, Melbourne in September 1927, brought together for the first time, engineers and health professionals from across Australia and from all levels of governance, to discuss the best methods of waste collection, treatment and disposal to help improve public health.

Details

The subjects that were considered included:
* the need for extension of meat supervision, treatment of waste waters from abattoirs;
* sewerage, house connection practice, hydraulic works and water supplies, rational charges for water supply, chlorination of water supplies;
* municipal refuse - its collection and transportation, refuse of Australian cities and its disposal, collection and disposal of town wastes;
* legislation governing town water supplies, public sewerage schemes, development of tanks for bacterial treatment of sewage, water supply scheme of Yallourn, Victoria;
* nature of plankton and its influence on water supplies;
* the advisability of forming an Australian sanitary institute;
* the regulation of camping, control of noxious trade premises, including disposal of wastes;
* removal and disposal of ships' refuse;
* town planning and health, ventilation of theatres and large public halls;
* town planning in country towns, small septic tanks;
* the sanitary engineer - his standing and functions, need for health inspection.

Related entries

Published resources

Conference Proceedings

• Proceedings of the First Commonwealth Conference on Public Health Engineering, Melbourne, 19th - 27th September, 1927, Division of Public Health Engineering (Melbourne: Commonwealth Department of Health, 1928), xviii, 229 pp. Details