Szablyár Péter: Sky-high - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2007)

Smokestacks

SMOKESTACKS

The smokestack of the Budapest Waste Treatment Plant

Nos. 10-12 Mélyfúró utca, District XV

It was as early as 1894 that the idea of building a refuse incinerator in Budapest arose. Even a site was assigned to the plant in 1904 in the Városmajor (Town Manor) area bordered by Városmajor utca, Diósárok (Walnut Ditch) and the Klotild Rest home. This was to use twelve furnaces and six boilers to burn 60 tons of waste a day generating 260 Megawatt-hours in electric power and recovering 120 tons of metal per annum. The flue gases were supposed to be discharged via a 35 metre tall smokestack. Residents of the neighbourhood and the management of the St. Johns Hospital nearby were less than enthusiastic, which is why Óbuda and later Gyáli út were suggested as alternative choices, but the plant was not in fact to be built. In the 1970s the construction of a waste incinerator could no longer be post55