The Hoyle system is one which should make a powerful appeal to the small communities, which, at the moment, are deficient in any system of garbage disposal other than open dumping. It has the governing virtue of being extremely flexible, being as readily applicable to the small town, numbering only a few thousand—even hundreds—of inhabitants as to the teeming city of a million or more souls. The financial outlay involved is comparatively trivial for the results achieved, and varies according to the size, capacity, and completeness of the plant.
Should our smaller towns embrace the system the contributions to the searching problems of the moment would, in the aggregate, be decidedly startling. The materials thus recovered, turned into the proper channels, would go a long way towards relieving the strains which are being experienced. The small town has a golden opportunity to demonstrate to the larger communities how things should be done. For the most part it is not saddled with a costly, so-called hygienic, destructor. The science of turning the contents of the dust-bin to commercial advantage is one offering possibilities too numerous to mention and might even lead to the establishment of local industries. Nothing organic or inorganic possessed of any utilitarian value need be lost.
On the other hand the city is not in such a fortunate position. It will have to forget a good deal of what it has assimilated in connection with the disposal of the contents of the ash-barrel. A change-over from the old to the new method must inevitably occupy time, especially as those two dragging chains which always retard the march of progress—prejudice and conservatism—have first to be released. Nevertheless, as destruction of domestic waste by fire superseded dumping upon open land, so must incineration, in turn, give way to the latest demands of science and the immutable economic law. The dust destructor never could possibly be construed into a scientific solution of the problem: it has no constructional or creative value, except of a nuisance in the form of accumulations of clinker. Even primitive dumping upon the land did possess the distinct advantage of benefiting the soil over which it was distributed. When the latest idea for recovering and exploiting the by-products of the dust-bin achieves the vogue which it deserves, land and industry will profit to the benefit of the community and of the country.
Naturally, certain local authorities, notoriously opposed to progressive development, will seek to stop the tide by belittling the new policy. They have become so firmly wedded to the destructor in which so much of the ratepayers’ money has been sunk as to be blind to improvement. They will continue still to waste money in supporting their fetish, strenuously declining to honour the axiom that it is often cheaper to cut the loss.
In the absence of willingness to jettison the old and to adopt the new, the pressure of compulsion should be applied. Local authorities must be prevented from continuing to squander potential resources of raw material. Alternatively, the exploitation of the despised dust-bin should be brought within the reach of private enterprise, which should be extended every encouragement. Other nations have always regarded our much-vaunted dust destructor as the high-road to waste. It has never found any pronounced favour beyond the confines of Britain. Have our rivals been wiser than we?
An interesting commentary upon this somewhat inexplicable predisposition to destruction by fire is offered by the experience of the city of San Francisco. In 1896 the city granted a fifty years’ franchise for the provision of a destructor for the disposal of household refuse to a private party. “This destructor,” remarks the city engineer in a communication to myself, “is the second, and last, example of the Thackery furnace and arrangement, the first having been built in Montreal, Canada, the previous year (1895).”
This plant has passed through somewhat strange vicissitudes. In 1910 it was purchased, together with the franchise, by the city authorities for £70,000—$350,000. It was then leased to a private party, under privilege, in return for an annual payment of £3,700—$18,500—5 per cent. upon the purchase price. During the early months of 1918, owing to the great increase in wages and other costs of operation, the lessee relinquished his lease, so that it was thrown back upon the hands of the city authorities. It was then taken in hand by the Scavengers’ Association under permit from the city, by whom it is at present being run at a cost of about 4s.—$1—a ton for the 375 to 380 tons of refuse collected daily by the scavengers.
But the city authorities are not impressed with this method of disposing of the contents of the ash-barrels of its citizens. “During the past year or two,” continues the city engineer in the communication already quoted, “we have become more than ever impressed with the wrong of unnecessary waste and have been making special study of our conditions and the means of improving them. Ordinances for segregation at the source, and collection of all, both garbage and rubbish, are now under action by the Board of Supervisors—the governing body of the city—and specifications are being prepared and bids asked upon the same for the collection and disposal of garbage and rubbish.
“It is specially provided that all proposals shall be based on a recognition of the need of conservation and the recovery of all values to the point of balance between profit and loss. It is expected that the garbage from households will amount to upwards of 100 tons daily, and that it will be attractive to hog-raisers.”