Rubbish heap

“ Waste papers, rubbish, greasy cloths, oily waste and rags should be destroyed. They should never be allowed to collect in cellars, attics, or closets, under the stairs or in the yard. Keep the whole house clean. Dust, dirt, and rubbish are fire-breeders. [Pg 122] This is especially true in factories, shops, fruit and grocery stores, schoolhouses, churches, and all public buildings. It is cheaper to throw away barrels, boxes, papers, sawdust, painter's cloths, old rags—waste of any kind—than to burn it up by setting the house on fire. ”

“ When the garbage is deposited in sufficient quantity offensive odors due to fermentation and decomposition may create a nuisance. Unless special attention is given to the treatment of these dumps, this method will not be found desirable. A thorough mixing of garbage with ashes and rubbish will prevent the nuisance and the fires that are otherwise liable to occur, creating odors and nuisance from the smoke and unconsumed gases. ”

“ Iron cages are sometimes used at the dump for burning the valueless combustible rubbish.
Some cities are successfully operating incinerating plants for the destruction of garbage and combustible rubbish; others have plants which burn the garbage and rubbish and a part of the ashes. ”

“ When I see men, women and children poking over the masses of evil-smelling rubbish on the mammoth dump-heaps that deface the landscape near some of our great cities, or going from house to house collecting old iron or rubber or newspapers, or picking over the slag along the railways for chance lumps of coal, I wish that there were some way of getting them away into the woods where firewood is rotting and doing harm besides, a waste that works both ways, you see. ”

“ It is driven by an aged and sweated driver, and the burning garbage of its furnace distils a choking reek into the air. A huge train of urban dust trucks bangs and clatters behind it, en route to that sequestered dumping ground where rubbish is burnt to some industrial end. ”

“ Enormous waste is caused by fire, and most fires are due to carelessness—carelessness in handling matches, in the use of oil stoves, in accumulations of rubbish, in disposing of hot ashes, in smoking where there are inflammable materials. ”

“ Three-fourths of the solid wastes that proceed from human dwellings—scraps of food, waste paper, worthless vegetables, worn-out utensils, bones, weeds, old boots and shoes, whatever unmanageable and unnamable rubbish appears—ought to be at once consumed by fire, for which purpose a small cremating furnace should be found in every house. ”

“ MOST of the substance we call the rubbish of our houses finds its way sooner or later into the dust-bin, and thence into the dust-man's cart, which conveys it to the dust-contractor's yard; and there we are for the most part contented to lose sight of it. It is worthless to us, and we are thankful to be rid of it, and think no more of it. But no sooner does it reach its destination in the yard than our rubbish becomes a valuable commodity. ”

“ Burning combustible rubbish that is not salable and using the ashes to fill in low land, or for road or sidewalk making, or selling part for use in partitions for fireproof buildings or for laying cellar floors. ”

“ Where ashes, rubbish and garbage are collected and dumped together, many cities have found that the so-called sanitary fill method, described in the chapter on garbage, is the most satisfactory. It is becoming more and more difficult for cities to maintain dumps on account of the congestion of population, which forces the municipality to seek disposal places far away from the centers, thus increasing the length of haul. If paper, garbage and combustibles are allowed on the dump, fires are apt to result and these make odors and smoke which are unpleasant and unhealthful. ”

“ Occasionally a tip-heap will catch fire, to burn sullenly for weeks and months. One such large dump in the United States burned uninterruptedly for years. This would not be possible if there were not present a large volume of combustible matter—coal—associated with the so-called useless material. ”

“ When this mass of rubbish is somewhat assorted, the cinders are separated and used for fuel for the boilers and furnaces (no coal whatever is allowed in the yard) , the remaining portion of the rubbish along with some most vile and abominable matter which occasionally comes to the yard in the pails, is taken to the Carbonisers (of which there is a nest of eight in the yard) , and the obnoxious material is therein carbonised and is resolved into a perfectly harmless material. ”

“ The food wastes of the kitchen and table, consisting of decomposable organic matter, and commonly known as garbage, require separate disposal; and the same is true of ashes, waste paper, and other rubbish. Street dirt must be collected and removed, and the streets must be sprinkled to keep down the dust which is inevitable even with the best sweeping. ”

“ Rubbish is left lying about near the cellar furnace; matches are placed where children can reach them; kerosene or gasoline is used to light the kitchen fire; chimneys are allowed to go unrepaired and uncleaned; ends of cigarettes are thrown on the floor or into the waste basket—individual carelessness may take many forms. ”

“ Other articles of no use, such as broken crockery, bottles, tin cans, etc., can be thrown into depressions and gullies and covered over with earth, or else buried in trenches where subsoil drainage is desirable. The removal of rubbish is a very fruitful theme and might be dealt with at length. Its importance as related to health and disease is a subordinate one, and the reformer must appeal to the love of order, propriety, and beauty in and around the home in order to make an impression. ”

“ The heavy rains of this month interfere in a material degree with outdoor work, and are often a great impediment to the orderly management that should prevail. The accumulation of rubbish anywhere, even if out of sight, is to be deplored as an evil altogether. The injury to vegetation is as great as that inflicted on our own health when dirt poisons the air and damp hastens the general dissolution. ”

“ It must be taken into consideration that later and more cultured periods yield higher deposits of rubbish than earlier ones, which are remains of simpler conditions of life, and of unpretentious dwelling-places. Also in the course of a long period the rubbish is much more pressed together by its own weight than in a shorter period, when the process of compression has not been so prolonged. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Rubbish is left in the burning sun for children to play in, street, river, and cliff being polluted with it, and many small towns are in a truly miserable state. The mayor of one of them was asked why a cart was not sent to collect the rubbish, and his answer was typical. ”

“ In another part of the yard is a second set of furnaces which are called destructors, and are used for the purpose of destroying rubbish, which before-time, for many years past, has been deposited in large heaps in every suburb of the city, to the great annoyance of the inhabitants whose fate it was to live in the vicinities of these deposits. ”

“ 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. ”

“ House Treatment Many cities require that garbage be drained and some that it be wrapped in paper as well as drained. Wrapping aids combustion when the disposal is by incineration. Wheeling, West Virginia, claims that wrapping garbage eliminates smell, preserves can, provides fuel and makes work much less unpleasant for the collector. Dr. P. M. Hall and Samuel A. Greeley advocate wrapping if garbage is burned. Seven cities, of those from which statistics have been received, require that garbage be wrapped—Dunkirk, Jamestown, Mount Vernon, Trenton, Milwaukee, Grand Rapids and Minneapolis. ”

“ The odors or nuisances caused from disposal plants will 180usually arise from one or more of the following sources: Garbage or refuse, incomplete combustion or combustion temperatures not sufficient to eliminate odors, congestion of carts in one locality and creation of dust. The odors arising from raw garbage which are found in all plants are mostly local and will not create a nuisance a short distance from the point of handling and the housing of equipment used in hauling. ”

“ In particular, objects are constantly thrown into rubbish-pits many years, perhaps even centuries, after those objects have passed out of use. Whenever, even in a village, an old cottage is pulled down or a new one built, old rubbish gets shifted to new places and mixed with rubbish of a quite different age. ”

“ See how many causes here combine to pollute the air. If the room is heated by a stove, quantities of carbonic-oxide and carbonic-acid gases, as well as other products of combustion, driven by downward drafts in the flue, escape through seams and cracks and the occasionally opened door of the stove. In the case of a furnace, the same effect is too often experienced, and the odor of coal gas is a common one, especially when the fire is replenished. ”

“ For one thing, there is no more imperfect combustion of coal going on everywhere, and no roadways like grassless open scars along the earth from which dust pours out perpetually. We burned and destroyed most of our private buildings and all the woodwork, all our furniture, except a few score thousand pieces of distinct and intentional beauty from which our present forms have developed, nearly all our hangins and carpets, and also we destroyed almost every scrap of old-world clothing. ”

“ Dust collecting chambers, flues, as well as furnaces which have been ‘blown down,’ shall not be entered by workmen unless sufficiently cooled and ventilated.
Special Regulations for such parts of a factory where lead colours are prepared
6. In grinding, sieving and packing dry leady materials, in charging, and emptying litharge and red lead furnaces, in collecting the red lead and similar operations in which leady [302] dust is developed, exhaust arrangements shall be provided for preventing the entrance of dust into the workrooms. ”

“ The proper watering of streets before they are swept is also an important factor in health. Much dust is composed largely of dried excreta of animals. Soft-coal smoke does its share to add to the impurities of the air, while sewer gas and illuminating gas are frequently found in sufficient quantities to poison people. Pure air is, as can be seen, almost an impossibility in a great city. ”

“ 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. ”

“ At the same time, the effect of this peculiarity of construction is to cause the gases themselves to move slowly through the flues, so that they may part with their useful heat before escaping into the atmosphere. The force of draught at the furnace is such that a high and constant temperature is obtained and efficiency of combustion insured, while all unpleasant odors inherent in town garbage are destroyed. ”

“ I may further add that I am animated by a deadly hatred of our barbarous practice of wasting precious coal by burning it in iron fire-baskets half buried in holes within brick walls, and under shafts that carry 80 or 90 per cent of its heat to the clouds; that pollute the atmosphere of our towns, and make all their architecture hideous; that render scientific and efficient ventilation of our houses impossible ”

“ And more, the very dirt is in itself inflammable, and capable, as it festers, of spontaneous combustion. How many a stately house has been burnt down ere now, simply by the heating of greasy rags, thrust away in some neglected closet. ”

“ If any of us could see the regular gaseous waste from our kitchen-stoves kindled up in the chimney to a pitch of heat sufficient to melt iron there, it would be a convincing proof of the estimated loss of ninety-five per cent, of our fuel, and would resemble faintly what is done outside the fire-chamber of the Lowe or Strong furnace, and in what answers to the chimneys of our dwellings. ”

“ The entrance of lead dust, or fumes, into the workrooms shall be prevented by suitable means as far as possible. Rooms which cannot be thus protected must be so separated from other rooms that neither dust nor fumes can enter them. ”