Rubbish Tips and Playing Fields

The impact of man [sic] on the wetlands has increased in the last twenty years, not because we want the land but because we need the holes

Seddon 1972

From the early years of the Swan River Colony, wetlands were used as convenient repositories for rubbish dumping. In later years, municipal authorities gazetted wetlands as rubbish tip sites, and metropolitan rubbish was dumped into the wetlands until they were full. They were then flattened and used as sports grounds, parks and ovals. Lake Poulett was drained in 1872, and after serving as the town rubbish dump and then Chinese gardens, was partly used for the formation of Birdwood Square in 1914 (Seddon 1972).

By 1901 the clay pits east of Plain Street had been transformed into Queens Gardens but directly across the road was the East Perth rubbish tip filled with water, overflowing with rubbish and surrounded by mud and decay, it was a standing disgrace. In 1904 the tip was covered with sand and transformed into sports playing fields which are now the Western Australian Cricket Association grounds (WACA) (Stannage 1979).

When Cedric Jacobs commented that if rubbish is dumped into the lakes the land will die (Cedric Jacobs cited in Laurie 2003), he was articulating what science now knows about wetlands; that they act as ground water filters which slow down the velocity of the water and take up toxins and contaminants. The continuing impact of the use of wetlands as rubbish tips reverberates in the plethora of contaminated sites beneath ovals, parks and along the Swan River where riverside wetlands were used as rubbish tips. Many drains are now being planted with reed beds and sedges as a way of rehabilitating contaminated post industrial areas and preventing contaminants flowing into rivers.