Washington.—Superintendent of street cleaning gives his opinion that much more effective sweeping can be done without sprinkling and in hand patrol work where dirt is not allowed to collect in any considerable quantity is not necessary. In machine sweeping, however, he finds it necessary to sprinkle with a small amount of water. In cold weather sprinkling is omitted; but at such times many complaints are received on account of dust.
Minneapolis.—In general the orders of the street district commissioners are to sprinkle the streets before sweeping.
Street Cleaning Methods
Four methods are used in American cities for street cleaning, hand sweeping, machine sweeping, flushing by machine and hose and squeegeeing.
All experts advocate the sweeping of streets by hand, commonly called the patrol system. The implements used in patrol cleaning are broom, pan scraper, squeegees, can carrier and cans. The broom is usually one which has a 4 × 18 inch block, filled with split bamboo, rattan, hickory, steel wire or black African bass. The block is usually fitted with a steel scraper. The pan scraper is constructed like a dust pan, turned up sides and back. It is about 36 inches wide by 15 inches deep. The squeegee is a board about 36 inches wide fitted with a rubber strip which extends below the lower edge of the board. Brooms, pan scrapers and squeegees have handles about 66 inches long. The cans are made to hold about three cubic feet of dirt and taper 19 inches in diameter at the top to 17 inches at the bottom. The can carrier has two large wheels and two small, and a platform upon which the can or cans rest.
A new carrier has been devised which carries two cans and is so balanced that the two cans are more easily manipulated than the one. Some cities are now substituting canvas bags for cans.
Whinery says that when street surfaces are of such character as to admit it, hand sweeping is the most effective method.
J. W. Paxton says that hand cleaning work is capable of better distribution than any other method, because more attention can be given to dirtier areas by increasing the number of men who only clean the portions of the street which are dirty and work on those portions until they are clean. There is a fine scum which is not apparent when the pavements are dry but rises up in a thin sheet of mud when moist, making the pavements very slippery. This and fine dust cannot be removed by hand cleaners, but by washing about twice a week in addition to hand cleaning, these troubles can be eliminated.
Very believes that this method of cleaning is fairly effective but is a dust raiser and the ability of the man to cover areas is very limited, especially since the automobile has come into such general use, as it interferes with the sweeper and his work. He says that there are hand machine brooms built on the principle of the carpet sweeper which are not dust raisers and which as a matter of fact do much more effective work. The pan scraper is only valuable to remove manure and mud and coarse litter, and its use should be limited to the time necessary for such work, and the broom used for dust removal.
The area a sweeper can clean depends upon the existence of local conditions. A test was made in New York City for one week and it was found that the area one sweeper was able to clean in a day of eight hours varied from 2,212 square yards to 16,075 square yards, with an average over the whole city of 5,745 square yards. The efficiency division of the Civil Service Commission of Chicago reports: “From an analysis of the findings of the time and motion studies of street cleaners the following table has been deduced, upon which are based the relative difficulty of cleaning different pavements under varying conditions and the standard and equivalent areas to be cleaned by one man in one eight-hour day.”