The Municipal and Sanitary Engineer's Handbook

by H. Percy Boulnois

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.[161] 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 such materials cannot be too strongly deprecated if there is any chance of dwelling houses being erected on them, as the unsanitary condition of sites thus formed has been frequently demonstrated.

Where towns are unable to dispose of their refuse by sale to farmers or market gardeners, the best method, and one which is gaining in popularity every day, is that of its destruction 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 reverberatory 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.[162]

The next point which has to be considered, and which is the second in order of the list of duties I have given at the commencement of this chapter, is “the cleansing of earth closets, privies, ash-pits, and cesspools.”

This is generally effected in conjunction with the collection of the house refuse and the work is carried out at night. Under the Goux-tub system the ashes of the house refuse are largely used as a deodorant or absorbent as a lining for the tub,[163] but in the pail systems this mixture is not effected until the tubs and refuse arrive together at the depôt.

For descriptions of the manner in which the pail system for the collection of excreta is carried out in Birmingham, I must refer my readers to an article written by myself in a number of The Sanitary Engineer of New York published on the 1st Sept. 1881, in which I have entered fully into the method there adopted and its advantages and disadvantages, but which are too long to recapitulate in this chapter.

The next duty which has to be considered is that of “the proper cleansing of streets.”

There is no doubt that for the sake of the appearance as well as the health of any town its streets cannot be too well cleansed. Muddy and wet streets cause dampness in the subsoil of neighbouring dwellings, and dust is not only injurious to tradesmen’s goods but also to the lungs of those who have to breathe an atmosphere loaded with silicate and organic impurities.[164]

Street cleansing is effected either by hand-sweeping and hand-scraping, or by machinery. As to which is the most economical much depends upon the value of labour, and also upon the condition of the roads to be dealt with, but in point of time and as a general rule the value of a horse rotary brush-sweeping machine is undoubted, the only time at which such a machine fails to do effective work is on the occasions when the mud to be removed (owing to a peculiar condition of the atmosphere), has attained a semisolidity, and is of a stiff and sticky consistency, when it either adheres to and clogs the brushes of the machine, or is flattened by them on to the road instead of being removed.[165]