RUBBISH RUNNERS

Decades ago, as a young boy determined to learn the arts of hands-on seamanship, I found a berth on the scow Success, gathering rubbish and gash (galley scraps) from ships in Port Wellington.

All the waste was quarantined so, after chugging around the overseas ships, we’d motor down Evans Bay and discharge at a wharf where our cargo was incinerated. It was a great ship-handling education, going alongside the towering steel hulls in all sorts of weather while crewmen craned their refuse to land on the ’ deck. Drums of borscht from