1965 is a foreign country, they do things differently there. The counter culture was only beginning to awaken, but mainstream society still devoutly believed in unfettered heavy industry and the opportunities for economic growth and prosperity that it offered. The environmental cost? There were a few naturalists around who had gained some attention, such as Rachel Carson and her book Silent Spring. She had been dead for a year by 1965, however, having died far too young from the curse that is cancer. But for the most part the only concern was about the production. More was better. A combination of the privations of the depression and the war taught us that, or so we thought.

And so it was that in 1963 the Electrolytic Refinery and Smelting Company of Australia commenced construction of one of the tallest industrial stacks in the country, which would be completed 2 years and about 198 metres (up) later. It was known throughout the region simply as "the stack" and was one of the (if not the) most noticeable landmarks in the Illawarra. Part of the intention of the height was that it would carry away the pollutants from the Port Kembla region. So sure were some people of this that a primary school was built alongside the thing.

You can guess how well that turned out.

The stack was bought by a company that was renamed Southern Copper. In their last year of operation in the early 90's they exceeded the World Health Organisation's limits for sulphur dioxide emission almost 4,000 times. If there was an SO2 detector on the building at the time it must have been going off like a pinball machine. The plant was therefore closed, but a couple of years later a Japanese consortium bought the smelting licence promising to make it lean and clean as well as efficient.

You can guess how well that turned out.

The plant shut for the final time in 2003. A few years later concrete cancer was found in the stack's structure. Its execution was ordered.

But this was not without some resistance from those who felt that the stack was a symbol of the industrial history of the region. They wanted to preserve it, but it was never clear who was supposed to pay for doing so or what purpose it would serve other than as a decaying landmark. I can understand its historical significance, but you can't hold on to every building that has ever been. Except photographically, perhaps, which is where we PADers (back as far as Atget) come in.

The attempts to preserve the stack were thwarted, and within 24 hours this view looked very different after the stack was imploded and crashed to the ground.