Dirty Dustbins and Sloppy Streets - A Practical Treatise on the Scavening and Cleansing of Cities and Towns

Chapter VI.
DISPOSAL OF HOUSE REFUSE.

Having proceeded thus far with my subject, the very important question next arises as to the manner of the disposal of the house refuse after it has been collected by the Local Authority, both with regard to its sanitary aspect and also to that of economy.

So much depends upon the position of every town and the character of the district in which it is situated, that no hard and fast lines can be laid down in reply to this question, if, however, the town is fortunate enough to be the centre of an agricultural district, or there are ready and economical means of conveying the refuse there, no difficulty should be experienced in disposing of it, if not altogether at a profit, at least at a small loss upon the cost of collection, as farmers and market gardeners will readily buy house refuse at prices varying from sixpence to three shillings a load to use as a top dressing or manure upon their land, and a very rich and fertilizing manure it makes, notwithstanding the outcry that is sometimes raised against it that it produces rank weeds, owing to the seeds of such vegetation being found in every domestic dustbin, the fact really being that all manures will foster and help the growth of weeds, as well as cereals or roots, and the appearance of a prolific crop of weeds points rather to bad and careless farming than to the use of inferior manure.

In order to suit the convenience of the customers for refuse, and in order to prevent any delay in its collection from the houses, it is necessary for every town to provide one or more depôts in which the refuse may be so deposited from day to day as it is collected.

The site of each depôt should be very carefully selected, bearing the following requisitions in mind:—

They should not be at greater distances from the town than would allow the carts to make from three to four journeys a day, and it is evident that their position should, so much as possible, avoid the necessity for the carts to pass through the town when full; they must also be placed so as to be readily accessible to the carts and waggons of the farmers, the customers, and above all, they must be so situated with regard to any dwelling-houses or public roads as not to cause any nuisance, or be injurious to health in any possible manner, and for this purpose a knowledge of the prevailing wind in that neighbourhood would be useful, and care must also be taken that no stream or water-course from which the supply of any drinking water is obtained is likely to become polluted by having such an unpleasant neighbour as a "refuse depôt."

The depôt need only be an open field securely railed off against trespassers or pilferers, but as it generally swarms with countless numbers of rats, it is just as well that no stacks or barns should be erected in its vicinity, if their owner has any wish to preserve his corn.

In this depôt, the site of which has been selected with all due care, the refuse should be made up into measured heaps, a convenient size for them being found to be twelve feet square by six feet high; these heaps are then sold as they stand to farmers and others who send their carts and waggons to remove them, thus preventing any possibility of mistake or dispute arising as to the number of loads each customer pays for and receives. The refuse, when first brought into the depôt, is far more bulky than it afterwards becomes, and it shrinks nearly twelve per cent. after a few months' exposure to wind and rain; it is therefore necessary to unload each cart as it arrives from the town on to an enormous heap or mound, from the other end of which the measured heaps are made up after the material has become stale and sunken. Another cause for the shrinkage and reduction of bulk of house refuse after reception at the depôt is the necessary removal of all the old tins, broken crockery, broken flower pots, &c., before it can be sold to the farmer, and a very difficult matter it is to know how to deal with this heterogeneous mass of absolutely useless articles thus left behind, unless they can be used for bottoming roads, or for agricultural or for deep land drainage, or for filling up hollows of land not afterwards intended to be built upon, when these materials would be very useful and acceptable for such purposes, otherwise they must be kept and allowed to cumber the ground until some such use can be assigned to them.

All towns are not so conveniently situated with regard to their surrounding neighbourhood, as will permit their authorities to sell the collected house refuse to farmers, market-gardeners, or others, for use as manure, and in such cases, where they cannot do so, other measures must be resorted to, in order to dispose of it in the most economical and sanitary manner.

Among the numerous questions that I addressed to the various towns of England when engaged in preparing the returns to which reference has already been made, was one to the following effect:—"How is the refuse disposed of after collection?"

Many and various were the replies to this. Amongst them were the following:—

In many towns it is stated that the whole of the refuse is used by brick makers, in others it is simply "tipped to waste." In one case the answer is, "Sold by auction twice a year," but to whom it is sold, and for what purpose, does not transpire. In some towns it appears to be mixed with lime and used as manure upon the fields, and in others it is mixed with the sludge of the sewage farms, and is then ploughed or dug into the soil of the farm. This seems a better plan than that of another town, where it is "given or thrown away," although the difficulty of disposing of the old iron, tins, &c., is not touched upon in any of the foregoing answers. The next reply states that "it is riddled, and the cinders and vegetable refuse are burnt to generate steam, the fine dust is used with the manure manufactory (tub system), the old iron is sold, and the pots, &c., used for the foundations of roads." In one case the whole of the refuse is taken out to sea in hopper barges, and sunk in deep water. In a great number of towns it is sold by tender for the year, but what eventually becomes of it does not transpire. But the most favoured methods, where it cannot be sold as manure to farmers, seem to be either that of carting it away to some spot outside the town, and there using it for the purpose of filling up hollows and depressions, or that of giving or selling it to brick-makers.

The practice of filling up hollow places with either house refuse or street sweepings cannot be too strongly deprecated, as it stands to reason that some object is in view when these hollows are thus filled up, and we may be sure that the object is that of transforming inconvenient and impracticable pieces of ground into convenient building sites, whereon, sooner or later, eligible villas make their sudden appearance, almost with the rapidity of Aladdin's Palace, under the magic hand of a jerry builder, and woe betide the unfortunate being who, struck with the pretentious appearance and low rent of one of these eligible family residences, takes up his abode therein, for so surely will disease, and perhaps death, be his visitor. I will not here enter into the details, or describe the medical reasons why such sites are unhealthy for dwelling-houses, as the fact is almost self-evident, and the practise of using either house refuse or street sweepings for such a purpose has been condemned by sanitary experts over and over again. But I will pass on to describe a method of disposal of town refuse which is now gaining some popularity in localities where difficulties are experienced in getting rid of the refuse by any of the means to which reference has been made, and which up to the present time seems to be the best solution of the difficulty. I allude to the process of the destruction of the refuse by fire. With this object in view a Mr. Fryer has invented an apparatus which he styles a "Patent Carboniser, for the conversion of garbage, street, and market sweepings, also other vegetable refuse into charcoal." This apparatus consists of a structure somewhat resembling, externally, a brick kiln. It is divided into hopper-shaped compartments, which at the bottom are furnished with a furnace, fitted with a reverbatory arch. A fire is lighted in this furnace, the necessary combustion being obtained, and the heat maintained, by burning the cinders, which are sifted out of the house refuse for this purpose.

All the street sweepings, refuse, garbage, &c., is then thrown in at the top of the kiln, and it is there and then completely destroyed by the action of the fire, and converted into charcoal, which is withdrawn through a sliding door fixed at the bottom of the kiln. The inventor further contends that his Carboniser not only burns everything within it so thoroughly and completely as to produce effectual deodorisation, but also that in the process all noxious gases which may be driven off the burning organic matters contained in the refuse are themselves burnt and destroyed.

Mr. Fryer has also patented another apparatus which he calls a "Destructor for reducing the bulk for purifying and fusing mineral refuse of towns, the residue to be converted into concrete or mortar." This apparatus is somewhat similar in construction and mode of action to the "Carboniser," except that it has no tall kiln containing the hopper-shaped compartments. Great heat is, however, necessary in order to fuse the mass of heterogeneous articles that are thrown into it, and its success is greatly dependant upon such heat being constantly and efficiently maintained. It is said that the cost of an establishment to dispose of the refuse by this means, consisting of one...