SUPPLYING INDUSTRIES FROM THE DUST-BIN
During the past few years no effort has been spared to improve the
health and well-being of the community. Laws innumerable have been
passed compelling the mitigation of nuisances and the removal of
menaces to hygiene. These efforts are laudable, but, while they have
achieved the desired end, they have been directly responsible for many
other shortcomings. The greatest of these is waste, more especially in
so far as it affects the household.
Probably no other factor has contributed so materially towards the
factor of heavier domestic prodigality than the provision of the
portable dust-bin, and the introduction of systematic and regular
collection of the flotsam and jetsam contributed thereto. The very
convenience which the dust-bin or ash-barrel represents has served
to accentuate household extravagance. “Throw it in the dust-bin!” is
the popular slogan in domestic circles. Consequently this receptacle
has become the harbour for much domestic refuse which, under previous
conditions, would never have been so summarily discarded.
This disposition to be wasteful might have been checked, or at least
the errors of the domestic circle might have been rectified very
considerably, but for one disturbing element. We became such devout
worshippers of hygiene as to become insensible to all reasoning. A few
years ago the practice was to discharge the contents of the ash-barrel
upon open waste land. A small army of workers, even the nomadic element
of the community, turned to and raked over the spoil from our homes
very diligently. In this way immense quantities of odds and ends in
infinite variety which otherwise would have been lost found a market as
raw materials for many industries. Even the ultimate organic residue
fulfilled a mission of utility and one in consonance with the laws of
Nature, because, in the process of decomposition, the nitrogen and
phosphoric acid contents of the dump suffered release to feed the soil
to raise sustenance for man and beast.
But ransacking the garbage heap was declared to be a degrading and
health-menacing occupation and practice. Indeed, the whole system of
household refuse disposal was held up to obloquy. Reform was achieved
by the energetic advocacy of another means wherewith to cope with such
waste. It received widespread support because it fully coincided with
all the requirements of hygiene, while, furthermore, it was simple,
expeditious, effective and apparently cheap.
This was destruction by fire along so-called scientific lines. The new
idea arrested public fancy mainly for the reason that its champions
laid emphasis upon the fact that it presented the possibility of
obtaining energy to generate electric light and power and to drive
tramways for nothing. Municipalities became affected with the
incineration fever. Steam was necessary to drive the electric plant
which had been acquired. Why not cut down the coal-bill by making use
of the fuel properties possessed by household refuse? The contents
of the domestic dust-bin are so varied, ranging from waste-paper,
grease-laden bones, fragments of fat, cinders, rags and vegetable odds
and ends as to present, in the aggregate, a readily combustible mass
possessing distinct calorific value. By utilizing the garbage, which
has to be collected, in this manner, the coal-bill might be reduced by
so much.
So argued the advocates of the new idea, and their reasonings proved
so specious as to gain the day. The prospect of being able to get
“Something for nothing” was so alluring as to silence effectively all
adverse criticism. Of course, it was futile to gainsay that cremation
could be rivalled as a prompt, simple, and completely sanitary means of
coping with the refuse which accumulates in every city and big town.
Forthwith destruction by fire became the widely-accepted means of
getting rid of the unsightly and unsavoury contents of the dust-bin.
Yet the coming of the dust-destructor proved to be a distinctly
retrograde step in the science of economics. It contributed to
increased improvidence in the home, because the ash-barrel became the
receptacle for a still wider assortment of organic material than ever
before, and in greater bulk.
It must be conceded that not all of the garbage which suffered
this fate was destroyed to futility. A certain volume of steam was
certainly raised wherewith to drive the electric generators, but the
amount of energy obtained in this way was out of all proportion to
the quantity and value of the material incinerated. In certain cases
the destructor was not harnessed to the power station. The ratepayers
have not experienced any sensible relief in regard to the fuel bills.
Even incineration of household refuse, despite the proportion of its
combustible contents, cannot be conducted satisfactorily without the
consumption of a certain volume of coal. And the process precipitates
a certain quantity of further refuse, in the form of clinker and ash,
the economic disposal of which has provoked another and even more
perplexing problem.
When necessity, which knows no law, compelled us to economize in every
direction, and particularly in connection with food, we found it
expedient to turn round to ascertain whether or not we might be able
to effect tangible savings to minimize the disconcerting influences of
stringency. The domestic dust-bin was the first factor in the domestic
circle to undergo sensational overhaul. Material which had hitherto
been consigned to this dead end only too freely and perfunctorily, was
more closely scrutinized to see if it could not be induced to yield
further useful service before suffering complete abandonment by the
housewife. Contemporaneously with this manifestation of individual
private effort the civic and municipal authorities were compelled to
display unwonted activity. The whole problem of refuse disposal had to
be viewed from quite a new angle.
Upon investigating the issue of household refuse at close quarters, and
under the microscope of concentrated interest, the country’s wastage
in this direction was found to exceed the wildest speculations of the
critics. For the first time illuminating statistics became available.
According to the National Salvage Council, the official department
created to stimulate the public mind in matters pertaining to this
question, the quantity of refuse “made” by householders throughout the
country during the year may be set down at 9,450,000 tons.
At first sight this figure seems so startling as to be received with
incredulity, but analysis suffices to demonstrate that it does not
err upon the side of exaggeration. Rather is it conservative. It is
based upon an allowance of 1,680 lb. a day for each 1,000 members of
the total population during 300 days of the year. An allowance of 1·68
lb. per head per day wastage cannot be construed as excessive. How
many households of six persons can show a weekly dust-bin collection
weighing less than 60 lb. especially when the extremely varied contents
of the receptacle are born in mind?
Now, of what is the heterogeneous collection of the dust-bin composed,
and what is the proportion of each to the aggregate? The following
table, based upon the data collected by the official department already
mentioned, shows--
Material. | Average |Total per | Estimated Value.
|Percentage.| Year. |
--------------------------|-----------|----------|---------------------
| | Tons. | £ | $
Fine dust | 50·98 | 4,800,000| 240,000| 1,200,000
Cinders | 39·63 | 3,700,000| 1,850,000| 9,250,000
Bricks, pots, shales, etc.| 5·35 | 500,000| 25,000| 125,000
Tins | 0·98 | 90,000| 360,000| 1,800,000
Rags | 0·40 | 37,000| 555,000| 2,775,000
Glass | 0·61 | 50,000| 100,000| 500,000
Bones | 0·05 | 4,000| -- | --
Vegetable matter | 0·72 | 68,000| -- | --
Scrap iron | 0·06 | 5,000| 15,000| 75,000
Shells (oyster, etc.) | 0·08 | 7,000| -- | --
Paper | 0·62 | 58,000| 400,000| 2,000,000
From these figures it is evident that the dust-bin is a
veritable treasure ground. Of course the values are subject
to market fluctuations, but it is apparent that a round
£3,000,000--$15,000,000--more or less, a year, is being allowed to fly
up the chimney to vanish in smoke and gases, and to extend very meagre
return for its combustion.
Let us consider the despised homely cinders as an illustration of how
we permit wicked waste to reign in the household circle. According
to the table they represent approximately two-fifths of the total
contents of the dust-bin, and make up the respectable aggregate of
3,700,000 tons a year for the whole country. As a straight fuel the
cinder is but slightly inferior to coal. When washed its calorific
value is about 10,000 British Thermal Units. Good steam coal only
averages 14,000 British Thermal Units. Accordingly the spurned cinder,
from the heat-raising point of view, is worth about five-sevenths of
coal drawn fresh from the mines. The householders of Britain have been
content to throw away 37,000,000,000 British Thermal Units every year
in ignorance. Translated into terms of coal this is equivalent to
2,642,857 tons. In other words we have wasted what is tantamount to
two-and-a-half millions of high-grade coal every year, and have spent
money on fuel which we might just as well have kept in our pockets or
have turned to other beneficial purposes. Obviously, if every house
undertook to turn its cinders to full account, the domestic call
upon the mines might be materially reduced, while there would be an
appreciable contribution to the conservation of our coal resources from
such a practice.
Paper is another commodity which, in the past, we have handled along
woefully improvident lines, as related in the previous chapter. We
have not even taken the trouble to burn it, but have permitted it
to drift and flutter hither and thither to find a final repository,
grievously soiled and dirty, in the dust-bin. But even when so marred
and deteriorated it was worth, during the war period, no less than
£7--$35--a ton!
The wastage of rags, both cotton and woollen, has been even more
deplorable. In this instance, however, possibly a reasonable excuse
for the prompt consignment of such material to the dust-bin and the
dust-destructor can be advanced. Popular opinion regards textile odds
and ends as an ideal vehicle for the transmission of the germs of
disease. Yet such does not justify the indiscriminate committal of
material worth £15--$75--per ton to incineration. Infected rags should
be burned forthwith in the household fire. But are they? Investigation
would probably reveal the disconcerting fact that they are thrown into
the dust-bin, as offering the most convenient means of disposal. Even
if they should be above suspicion when discarded, the chances are
that they become contaminated in the ash-barrel. Consequently upon
recovery such materials should be subjected to preliminary inexpensive
sterilization to ensure the public safety.
When the necessity to practise household salvage upon a comprehensive
scale became imperative, a few discreet inquiries were made to secure
reliable statistics as to what wealth is ignored or thrown away by the
community of these islands. The results were somewhat surprising.
In Sheffield, a city of some 500,000 persons, 56,000 jam-jars were
recovered in one week through a special collection conducted by school
children. They realized 6 shillings--$1.50--a gross, and so brought
in £120--$600. In Leicester the practice is, or was, to dispose of
certain articles to the local marine store dealers after collection,
and to divide the profit arising from the transaction among the
employees engaged in the refuse-gathering task. One quarter’s waste,
exclusive of old tins and waste-paper, netted £343--$1,715--of which
£249--$1,245--was obtained from rags alone. There were 264 dozen
jam-jars collected. They cost 15s.--$3.75--a gross new, and the trade
expressed its readiness to take over the reclaimed vessels at 7s.
6d.--$1.87--a gross. Kensington made £1,000--$5,000--from the sale
of one year’s collection of waste-paper. The Southport authorities
recovered £2,000--$10,000--over a similar transaction. The metropolitan
boroughs of Finsbury and Marylebone each swelled its local treasury
to the extent of £500--$2,500--in a similar manner. The City of
London garners 30 tons of this commodity every week. The ink-bottles
recovered from the garbage barrels of the metropolis would provide a
person with a comfortable income, averaging as they do several gross
a day. Liverpool derives £300--$1,500--from house-swill alone, which
it collects, dries, and turns into poultry-meal to sell at £15--$75--a
ton. Aberdeen, as the result of one day’s organized collection, secured
sufficient bottles to realize £567--$2,835.
It is obvious that, no matter from what point of view the question is
regarded, systematic organized salvage of the contents of the household
dust-bin can be rendered a highly profitable enterprise. Certainly
it opens up a promisingly rich and legitimate field for municipal
trading, though it is equally accessible to private initiative. It is
only requisite to survey the whole situation of the disposal of house
garbage from the new angle of scientific application. It is not refuse
in the generally accepted interpretation of the term. Such material
should rightly be regarded as by-products of the private domestic
kitchen.
The tardy recognition of this fact is responsible for a curious
reversion in practice. The open-air sifting of house refuse for the
recovery of substances possessed of commercial value was unequivocably
condemned from health motives, as previously mentioned. Yet, in
order to recover these articles, some system of selection and
hand manipulation are inevitable, notwithstanding the high degree
of intellectuality to which machinery has been advanced. But the
old system of hand-picking was primitive in its simplicity. The
circumstance that household refuse, both organic and inorganic,
possesses virtues which the vogue of the destructor caused to be
blindly ignored, has been responsible for a manifestation of marked
ingenuity upon the part of the engineering profession. The necessity
to recover every ounce of material possessing a market value was never
so acute as it is to-day. Supplies are short and are likely to remain
inadequate for some time to come, while the high level of prices is
apt to compel more rigid economy. Yet the strains encountered in this
direction may be very sensibly lessened by the practice of salvage
along more intensive lines.
It would seem as if refuse recovery were destined to develop into
a highly specialized branch of the engineering craft. Hitherto
for the most part the engineer has confined his efforts towards
garbage-disposal by destruction, but the new tendency is far more
logical and deserving of every encouragement. Certainly it is a field
in which abundant scope is offered for brilliancy and ingenuity of
thought. This is demonstrated by the activity of certain firms, more
particularly of one in the North of England, the guiding hand of the
destinies of which has evolved a complete recovery plant, having many
decidedly ingenious features, and which is already being installed by
certain of our more progressive corporations and municipal authorities.
This plant is self-contained, and, so far as is feasible, is
automatically operated. While hand-picking cannot be entirely
eliminated it has been reduced to the minimum. The system adopted
facilitates the task, and renders hand-picking as congenial as the
peculiar conditions will permit. Furthermore it is an individual
entity. While it can be established in an isolated centre it can also
be coupled up to the existing dust-destructor, or power-generating
station if preferred, thereby complying with the general desire to
centralize municipally-controlled installations. This is certainly a
powerful recommendation, because it avoids superfluous transport and
handling.
Under this scheme the refuse-collecting vehicles discharge their loads
into a receiving hopper from which the material falls by gravitation
into a hexagonally-shaped revolving riddle. This screen or reel for
two-thirds of its length is perforated to allow the fine ash associated
with the waste to escape into another large hopper placed immediately
beneath. The ash may then either be withdrawn directly from this hopper
into wagons or carts for removal, or should arrangements be made for
its combination with other ingredients to produce a fertilizing agent,
it may be led by conveyor from the hopper to the compounding-room.
For the remaining third of its length the hexagonal revolving screen
is perforated with a coarser mesh to permit the cinders to escape
into a separate hopper, at the base of which is a worm conveyor which
receives the cinders and bears them to a washer. The washing operation
is introduced to allow the separation of the light or combustible
fuel--cinders--from the heavier clinker, fragments of glass, pottery,
and other incombustible substances. At the same time all fine dust
clogging the interstices or pores of the cinders is removed, thereby
facilitating the subsequent combustion of the cinder, while, of course,
the heat produced from the cleansed fuel is greater than that derived
from such material loaded with incombustible dust.
After being washed the cinders are picked up by a scraper elevator. If
it be intended to utilize this fuel for raising steam in the adjacent
power plant it can be carried by conveyor direct to the boiler-room,
to be discharged into the bunkers or furnaces. Should it be decided
to dispose of the cinders, either wholly or in part, to the general
public, they may be taken by the transporter to any suitable point to
be stored against sale in bulk or in bags.
A second scraper elevator gathers the heavier debris separated from
the combustible fuel in the washer, and carries it to a pulverizer,
to which it is delivered through a chute. If the fine dust associated
with the raw refuse, and which fell through the receiving screen, be
not delivered from its hopper into vehicles for immediate disposal, it
may be led to this point to be stored in the pit receiving the material
from the pulverizer with which it may be mixed. Of course, the dust is
not passed through the grinding plant.
The elimination of the dust and coarser material from the crude garbage
in the receiving screen leaves an appreciable quantity of organic
and inorganic matter, comprising such divers substances as paper,
fragments of wood, bottles, jars, bones, tins, and vegetable material
to be handled. As these cannot pass through the perforations in the
sifting screen they are delivered on to a broad endless conveyor-belt
travelling between two platforms. This is the “picking belt,” from the
fact that as the material is borne along between the two platforms
the useful material is removed by the hands of pickers, to be cast
into suitably disposed bins. In this manner the process of segregation
is carried out with the minimum of effort, while the material is in
movement, and under the most congenial conditions the character of the
work will permit. It represents the only stage at which recourse to
manual labour is required, so that it will be seen that hand-selection
is reduced to the absolute minimum.
The waste-paper is not touched by hand. At a suitable point a specially
designed hood, connected to an exhauster, is mounted over the picking
belt. When this is set in motion the induced draught is sufficiently
powerful to suck up the paper, and to bear it through a special conduit
to be discharged into a convenient receptacle, whence it may be removed
to the baling press.
This plant, known as the Hoyle refuse-recovery installation, after
its inventor and designer, Mr. H. P. Hoyle, is extremely efficient.
Simplicity is the outstanding feature, while its operation is
economical and requires only the minimum of labour. So far as power
is concerned a single 10 horse-power electric motor suffices for all
operations. The capital cost has also been kept down, the price of
the complete plant being from £1,500 to £2,000--$7,500 to $10,000.
At this figure the installation of the system should prove distinctly
profitable, more especially in conjunction with one or two auxiliary
appliances which offer the means to enhance the market value of the
recovered materials, although they are not essential. For instance,
an appreciable proportion of the tins thrown into the dust-bin are in
a bright condition and free from rust. Such tins can be made to yield
so much crude tin plate for the production of further tins, instead of
being subjected to the less economic process of crushing, baling, and
detinning or transference to the furnaces in billet form to be melted
down.
A special type of machine has been evolved whereby the tops and bottoms
of the bright recovered tins can be cut off. The resultant cylinder is
then cut through on either side of the original seam, and the sheet
pressed out to form a flat plate. The eliminated joint, of course, is
set on one side to be treated for the recovery of the solder, while the
small pieces of tin find their way to the scrap-metal bin. The sheets
of bright tin which are thus recovered, and which are quite equal to
new tin-plate, command a ready sale, because they can be restamped into
smaller flat tins for packing boot polishes and similar commodities
extensively retailed in this form. The process is simple, rapid, and
can be made profitable.
Rusted tins require to be treated in a different manner. Some
corporations merely crush them flat to facilitate and to cheapen
transport, selling them in bulk to firms who specialize in the handling
of such product. However, it is a matter for investigation, when such
tins are recoverable from the garbage in appreciable quantities, as to
whether it would not prove more remunerative to the local authorities
to deal with the tins themselves. A furnace is required to burn off the
tin-dirt and to recover the solder. The tin itself, representing about
1 per cent., is lost, although there are processes in operation for its
reclamation. The receptacles may then be crushed and baled into billets
for which an hydraulic press is necessary. A plant capable of making
a bale measuring 24 × 14 × 6 inches is well-adapted to this duty. The
solder is in demand, while the plate is worth from £3--$15--upwards
per ton as scrap metal. At this figure the local authorities would
undoubtedly find it far more profitable to incur the extra expense and
labour involved to prepare the billets rather than to dispose of the
tins in their crude form. When the quantity is heavy direct sale to
the steel-works is possible and the middleman’s profit diverted to the
benefit of the ratepayers.
Paper should also be baled for reasons of transport. Either hand or
power appliances may be used, but unless the quantity likely to be
handled is pronounced, the hand-operated machine will be found adequate
for the task. Of course, it must be admitted that, to-day, prices for
the recovered materials rule somewhat high. Consequently it may be
averred by critics that, whereas such auxiliaries might be perfectly
justifiable under conditions such as now prevail, they would fail to
show an equally satisfactory result in normal circumstances.
But it must not be forgotten that prices are steadily rising all round.
Accepted raw materials are costing more, labour is more expensive,
and the tendency in both directions is still in the ascendant. But
even should prices and costs droop, it must not be forgotten that
such a movement would be attended by the utilization of greater
quantities of the articles concerned. They would be recoverable from
the garbage in greater volume, and then it would be possible to keep
the plants running to their full capacities for no heavier operative or
overhead costs. Consequently, in the long run the disposal of enhanced
quantities of tins, either as “bright” or scrap, at a lower figure,
would probably prove more profitable in the aggregate than treating a
limited supply, such as obtains under stringent economic conditions, at
a high figure.
How does a recovery plant of the foregoing description work out in
practice? This is the vital question. Upon this point it is possible
to advance some interesting figures. An investigation of the domestic
refuse problem as it affects the country as a whole has revealed
the circumstance of the contents of the dust-bin being tolerably
consistent, whether it be drawn from a residential or manufacturing
town, from the East-end or from the West-end, from the city or from
the suburb. On the basis of the analysis set forth elsewhere in this
chapter, and taking for our illustration a metropolitan suburb having a
population of 85,000 souls contributing 100 tons of refuse a day, the
possible recovery of by-products comes out as follows:--
--------------------------+--------+---------------+-----------------
Material. |Tons per| Price per Ton.| Total Value.
| Day. | |
--------------------------+--------+--------+------+--------+--------
Fertilizer prepared from | | £ s. d.| $ | £ s. d.| $
fine dust and pulverized| | | | |
debris from | | | | |
washer and picking | | | | |
belt | 65 | 0 1 0| 0.25| 3 5 0| 16.25
Cinders | 25 | 0 10 0| 2.50| 12 10 0| 62.50
Tins and metal | 2 | 4 0 0| 20.00| 8 0 0| 40.00
Paper (unsorted, dirty) | 1 | 7 0 0| 35.00| 7 0 0| 35.00
Rags | 0·5 |15 0 0| 75.00| 7 10 0| 37.50
Glass | 0·5 | 2 0 0| 10.00| 1 0 0| 5.00
--------------------------+--------+--------+------+--------+--------
Gross total per day |£39 5 0| $196.25
---------------------------------------------------+--------+--------
The foregoing figures may be accepted as moderate. Thus the cinders,
with a heating value equal to five-sevenths of that of good steam coal,
are priced at 10s.--$2.50--per ton. But, as experience has proved,
they readily command 14s.--$3.50--per ton, providing, in their washed
condition, a first-class, clean, cheap and economical fuel for the
poorer classes of the community. At 10s.--$2.50--per ton they are equal
to coal costing 14s.--$3.50--per ton, at which price such fuel is
absolutely impossible to-day. Even coke cannot be purchased at double
the figure. In other words, by buying washed cinders at the prices
quoted the purchaser is receiving a fuel equal, if not superior, to
contemporary household coal costing 35s. to 50s.--$7 to $10--per ton.
Again, the tins are assessed at a low scrap-metal value. Probably 50
per cent. of the tins rescued from the dust-bin to-day coincide with
the term “bright,” and thus would pay to turn into tin-plate. The
quotation for this material ignores the value of the solder, as well
as that ruling for other metals, such as brass and copper, and of
which far more is recovered from the ash-barrel than may be popularly
imagined. The figure given, moreover, represents the official price,
but since the removal of control scrap-metal has recorded higher
quotations. So far as the other materials are concerned the prices may
be taken as representative.
On the above showing of £39 5s.--$196.25--per day the plant gives a
gross return, in round figures, of £235--$1,175--for a six-day week,
or £11,775--$58,875--for a 300-day year. Allowing £5,000--$25,000--a
liberal figure--for the annual operation of the plant, the sum of
£6,775--$33,875--remains--the net return from the realization of some
of the utilitarian material recovered from the dust-bins into which
85,000 people throw what they consider to be useless during the course
of the year. Truly may it be said that the average member of the
public has but little, if any, idea of the wealth he allows to slip
through his hands as a result of carelessness or lack of knowledge.
Again, when it is reflected that, for the most part, the whole of such
potential wealth as this has been permitted to vanish in smoke, or if
incombustible to be kicked from pillar to post, we certainly cannot
complain when accused of deplorable extravagance.
So far as the capital expenditure of a plant, such as is set forth
above, is concerned, this may be set down at £1,000 to £1,500--$5,000
to $7,500. If for such a paltry expenditure a net revenue of
£6,775--$33,875--can be secured during the course of the year, surely
the moment has arrived when we ought to put our civic and municipal
houses in order. Granting that prices to-day are abnormal, and reducing
the net return by 50 per cent., even at £3,387--$16,935--per annum,
which may be taken as a safe assumption, a plant of this description is
able to pay its way within a short time after its installation, after
making even the most liberal allowances for capital charges, interest,
and depreciation.
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.”