Incinerator

“ When the incinerator has been raised to a white heat, it is ready for the reception of the remains. As the cover is removed from its mouth, the in-rushing air cools it from a white to a red heat, and the whole inner surface is filled with a beautiful rosy light which is fascinating to the eye. ”

“ The two main classes of incinerators are, (1) those that are installed in the cellar and there burn the garbage, which is dropped in a chute through a hopper installed by the sink or elsewhere in the kitchen (somewhat the way mail is dropped into the mail box through its chute) and (2) the incinerators which look like oblongly high stoves placed in a recess in the wall or against the wall in the kitchen where the waste is stored and burned. The cellar incinerator is connected with the kitchen, etc., often through the flue and the waste is dropped into a little hopper. ”

“ In the construction of the portable incinerator, the one that is placed in the room and not below stairs, you must be sure it is so built that the heat from burning is not communicated to the room to heat it up. ”

“ For burning light trash use a small incinerator two feet high and eighteen inches in diameter, made of iron, and with a cover circular in shape and perforated closely with holes half an inch in diameter. When in use the incinerator should stand in an open place away from all tents and buildings. The heavier trash, such as old shoes, paste-board boxes, discarded clothing, should be burned in a heap away from all buildings, care being taken that no bits of hot paper cause grass fires, or blow into the woods. ”

“ Every one must fight the fly; and the moral of that is: the incinerator is one way of getting rid of garbage and at the same time starving out the fly.
There is no room in the house in which cleanliness is so important as in the kitchen; therefore, the garbage can, in most instances, militates against its absolute cleanliness. To be sure, there is one good can on the market with an automatic lid which is raised with the foot so that stooping is unnecessary. One touch by the foot on the pedal opens the can, and as soon as the foot [121] is taken off the pedal, the lid closes. ”

“ Neatness is of prime importance in keeping a place free from, rats, and providing facilities for keeping it neat should be considered part of the rat-proofing program. An incinerator, which can be made from a discarded metal drum or rolled-up poultry netting, is convenient for burning all trash and combustible waste; and a deep, covered pit with a trapdoor will take care of tin cans and other noncombustibles, if it is not practicable to haul them away at regular intervals. A covered garbage can is also indispensable on farms where table scraps are not fed directly to poultry or hogs. ”

“ Most garbage incinerator manufacturers claim a life of 20 years for their plants with reasonable renewals.
Morse figures that when fuel is necessary the cost of destroying refuse and garbage in crematories is approximately 50 cents per ton. He also says that the cost of operating destructors is from 50 cents to 70 cents per ton for actual labor expenses, while the cost of operating the modern high-temperature destructor will not exceed from 50 cents to 60 cents per ton. Deducting credit for power, the cost will drop, he says, to 30 cents or less per ton. ”

“ If rubbish is burned on the grounds, use an incinerator. It keeps loose papers from blowing around and [Pg 218] starting an incipient blaze in some cherished shrubbery or in the grass itself. I once lost a fine row of small pine trees in such a manner. ”

“ We have eleven fills distributed over our city, thus making short hauls, and these are taken care of by eleven laborers disposing of approximately three hundred and fifty tons per day by this method alone, while one incinerator with about an equal payroll will only dispose of sixty to seventy-five tons per day, running twenty-four hours. ”

“ The various incinerator companies usually estimate the capacity of the plant at about one ton per 1,000 population.
Reports show that disposal by incineration in Ohio is confined to cities of from 20,000 to 80,000 population, and that its success has been confined to the very large and to the rather small cities of the country. Some assert that it is applicable in the very large cities only when the collection systems are suitable to provide for the burning of mixed 183refuse. In small cities it is the custom to cremate the garbage alone, the other classes of waste being dumped or buried. ”

“ Furthermore, the incinerator becomes a fire peril if the insulation and the lining is not 100% perfect.
Again the devices of air intakes and outlets, etc., etc., are questions for the engineer. All that we are concerned with, is whether the apparatus does its work.
Economy
The cost of operation is practically nil. The fuel used is gas or coal. Gas is the best method, the writer thinks. It takes only about twenty to thirty cubic feet of gas per burning, as the gas is needed only to start the operation and the evaporated garbage burns itself thereafter. ”

“ In any place where troops are billeted it becomes necessary to immediately construct incinerators, either of brick or metal, where all rubbish in the shape of empty jam-tins, garbage, etc., can be destroyed and, after being thus burnt, is buried. ”

“ Gradually we equipped our sinister haunt of science with materials either purchased in Boston or quietly borrowed from the college—materials carefully made unrecognisable save to expert eyes—and provided spades and picks for the many burials we should have to make in the cellar. At the college we used an incinerator, but the apparatus was too costly for our unauthorised laboratory. Bodies were always a nuisance—even the small guinea-pig bodies from the slight clandestine experiments in West’s room at the boarding-house. ”

“ Borough of Richmond, New York City: West New Brighton incinerator uses clinker in manufacture of brick by mixing cement with ground clinker.
185New Orleans, La.: Plans perfected to light streets and public buildings. Claimed that from 500 tons of garbage daily 30,000,000 K. W. can be generated a year.
Savannah, Georgia: Ninety-five per cent. of coal fuel previously used at pumping station is now saved by destructor. To operate water works pumping station it cost $81.90 per day. ”

“ Once a mule got shot, but it's a wonder that other flesh less valuable was not occasionally punctured, for these incinerators were just on the edge of the camp and generally had a group round them of those who preferred being fire-tenders to ramrod-shovers. ”

“ The iron notch is made at the bottom of the hearth. The cinder notch is higher up the side of the furnace, just below the level of the tuyeres; so high that the cinder can be drawn through it without letting off the molten iron. These holes are kept habitually closed with clay or other similar material. At frequent intervals, and always just before drawing off the molten iron, or making a cast, as the ironmongers call it, the cinder notch is opened, and the cinder or slag is allowed to escape, and is carried away from the furnace in a trough made of moistened sand. ”

“ Those most exposed to risk are the smelters at lead hearths and reverberatory furnaces, persons employed at the lead and slag runs, flue cleaners, and in crushing and packing flake litharge. Next come those employed at the refining furnaces, those breaking up the roasted ore, blast furnace workers, and those employed at the cupellation process. Attended with danger also is the removal of lead ashes and distillation of the zinc crust. Less dangerous are transport of material, crushing and mixing the ore, refining the work-lead and zinc crust, and work at the Pattinson and Parkes’ processes. ”

“ The carbonizer and the destructor are set 33 feet apart, to allow room for drawing the furnaces and for the mortar mills, but the space is hardly sufficient. One man is employed in attending to the carbonizer.
Besides the openings at the top of the destructor through which the ash pit refuse is fed into the cells, there is a larger opening in each cell, kept covered usually, through which bed mattresses ordered by the medical sanitary office to be destroyed can be put into the cells. ”

“ It is, however, advisable that gas conduits should only be entered by workers equipped with breathing apparatus and oxygen supply. Naturally adequate instruction of workers and training in first aid are necessary, as well as a sufficient supply of oxygen in constant readiness.
Injurious gases can escape from the furnace during tapping and slag running; poisonous gases with a disagreeable odour, from presence of sulphuretted hydrogen, also arise in granulating the slag, that is, when the fluid slag is led into water for subsequent use in preparation of cement. ”

“ The method of conducting the process of calcination depends on the nature of the body operated on. Many substances, for delicate experiments, are calcined over a spirit lamp in a platinum spoon or crucible; others, in iron vessels or earthen crucibles, placed in a common furnace. When the action of the air proves injurious, as in the manufacture of charcoal, the process is performed in close vessels or chambers. In some cases the fuel is mixed with the articles, and they are both burnt together, as in the manufacture of lime, the roasting of ores, &c. ”

“ Heat for destruction must be obtained not only from the garbage itself, but also from ashes and other combustible waste. It is here that the difference between destructors and crematories enters. In the former, heat is obtained from the refuse itself; in the latter, garbage is burned at the expense of coal, wood or oil. It seems to be the prevailing opinion that in order to make incineration a success the material must be burned at a high temperature and rapid rate of combustion.
Morse claims that destructors require twenty per cent. 182less area of ground, cost fifteen per cent. ”

“ A, A ́ Earthenware pipes B, B ́ Sandstone cooling towers C, C Series of Woulff’s bottles D, E Condenser wash towers Fig. 4b.—Elevation
The gases are led each through earthenware pipes or [17] channels of stone pickled with tar (A ́) , first into small towers of Yorkshire flags (B) , where they are cooled and freed from flue dust and impurities (sulphuric acid) by washing. They are next led through a series (over fifty) of Woulff bottles (bombonnes) one metre high, made of acid-resisting stoneware. ”

“ The cells being charged and clinkered in rotation, when the fire in one is green, in the others it is at its hottest, and the products of combustion do not reach the boiler surfaces until after they have been mixed in the main flue. The cast iron boxes which are provided at the sides of the furnaces, and through which the blast air is conveyed on its way to the grate, prevent the adhesion of clinker to the side walls of the cells, and very materially preserve the brickwork, which otherwise becomes damaged by the tools used to remove the clinker. ”

“ Usually, after grinding, it is simply stirred up repeatedly with hot water and the aqueous extract is siphoned off. That such a crude method should be in vogue at the present time is very significant of [79] the ample margin of profit that must exist. By systematic extraction and filtration under pressure the washing may be effected with so little water that the solution is sufficiently concentrated to pay for evaporation by the heat of waste furnace gases, the recovered sodium sulphate serving to replace part of the raw material. ”

“ Equipment utilizing disposal technologies other than incineration equipment in (a) to detoxify toxic chemicals including but not limited to liquid neutralization, gas phase chemical reduction, supercritical water oxidation, direct chemical oxidation, solvated electron, and plasma arc processes. b.l. Liquid neutralization equipment, and specially designed waste supply and material handling systems, with reactor volumes of 0.100 m3 (100 litres) or greater, in which all surfaces that come into direct contact with the toxic chemicals are made from corrosion resistant materials. ”

“ Cinders should be composed of hard, clean, vitreous clinkers, free from sulphides, soot, and unburned coal or ashes. As a precaution against the presence of small amounts of detrimental substances, cinders should be soaked thoroughly with water 24 hours before being used. If clean they will not discolor the hands when a small quantity is rubbed between the palms. ”

“ The zinc and water are put into the generator first and corked down, and connections made with the iron or composite pipe to the purifier, which merely contains water (three parts full) , and a small quantity of lime—say, a piece the size of a walnut to a pint of water. Should there be any leakage round the pipe, stop it with loam or clay. Pour the acid into the generator, through the feed-pipe, with a funnel, in small quantities at a time. As the gas passes into the balloon you can [508] tell how quickly it is forming by the bubbling sound which is taking place in the purifier. ”

“ Water-closets sometimes become loosened from the floor and leak fluids and gases. The covers of hand-holes of traps sometimes get loose and leak gas. Sometimes trap-screws, instead of being at the bottom of the trap, where they are covered by water, are at the top; if these are loose, gases may escape. All such defects should be repaired.
(c.) Pipes.—Both lead and iron pipes are corroded and in time perforated by sewer-air. Such corrosion is most likely to occur at points where gases come in contact with a dry part of the pipe, viz., at the crowns or domes of traps, and in ventilating-pipes. ”

“ Diagram XVI, page 149, facilitates the calculation of the number of pounds of bleach required for any dosage.
The solution discharged from the orifice box is carried to the point of application either in galvanised iron pipes of generous dimension or in rubber hose. Pumps may be used for raising the solution to a higher elevation but unless special material is used in their construction they corrode rapidly and cannot be kept in service. Whenever possible, a water injector should be used as it does not corrode and assists in maintaining the delivery pipes free from sludge. ”