CLEANSING A CITY

Otago Witness, Issue 3017, 10 January 1912, Page 88

CLEANSING A CITY

THE VALUE OF SCRAPS OUTSTANDING LESSON OF ECONOMY. By Arthur J. Heighway. Glasgow has packed within its city area of about 15,000 acres and the surrounding suburbs a population equal to that of the wlolo of New Zealand. Have you ever paused to consider what a task it niust be to keep such a city clean? Just thunk of the varied rubbish man leaves behind him at every turn. It may be little in the case of the individual; multiplied by 1.0p0.000 the total is colossal. For the municipal year ended in May last, for instance, the cleansing department of the City of Glasgow handled 322,408 tons of domestic and street refuse collected from over 350 miles of streets 1 . . , Now, every city has to dispose of its rubbish, and the problem always is to do it as cheaply aa possible. Glasgow, famed as a model municipality, has solved the problem more efficiently than any other modern city. She has solved it so that, while last year she spent £134,000 on this work, she received as revenue from an otherwise dead expenditure a sum not less than £42,05a, making the actual cost to the ratepayers only some £92,000. And she has solved it so effectively that she has turned the rubbish of past years into heritable and movable property valued at the present time at the huge sum of £353,165! In view of the splendid results thus achieved, some account of the methods cannot fail to be of interest.

The work of the department falls naturally into two divisions—first, street cleaning ; and, secondly, the collection of household refuse. The first is a necessary expense from which but little financial return can be expected, although, as will be shown later, the utmost is obtained that can be obtained. The sweeping of streets is done chiefly at night by rotary horse brushes or sweeping machines. In addition the main arteries of traffic are hosed down every night. In addition, again, the streets are “ picked ” over during the day by a small army of boys, with pan and brush, and their gatherings deposited in any one of the 2000 bins sunk in the pavement throughout the city. This is collected in the morning and added to the total of domestic refuse for treatment. Not only does the department wash the streets, but it extends its operations to dirty "closes” and private courts. In this case a special assessment is struck to meet the cost. The collection of domestic refuse was formerly done by moans of ashpits, but removable bins have now been substituted, nearly 50,000 being in use. These are kept in the private back-yard, and the corporation employees pass through and themselves carry the bin, which is covered, to the cart

.Now, this rubbish, of which over 1000 tons of all classes are gathered in every working day, divides itself into that which is saleable and that which is unsaleable. An assiduous sorting is engaged in, with this result: The sale of waste paper yielded £1176 11s 3d; tho sale of old tins, galvanised iron, buckets, and scrap iron gave £1970 12s 3d; heavy scrap iron from various works yielded the sum of £507 6s Id; and tho sale of 12,463 tons of clinker gave a revenue of £1631 17s 9d, giving a total revenue in this section of £6235 7s 4d. In the last 17 years the city by this care of scraps alone, lias saved about £50,000. But these items just mentioned comprise only the directly saleable portions of the accumulations, and tho real romance of Glasgow’s experience comes in with her treatment of the apparently absolutely useless rubbish. Tho city has now some seven despatch works, which, besides cremating material, prepares a fertilizer known as “ Prepared City Manure,” which has a large sale. This is formed as follows; Soft sweepings from the streets are tipped into a series of specially-designed tanks fitted with sloping bottom 5 and drainers for carrying of! the water. After a day or two the material is ready for further additions and mixings. The domestic refuse is shot through floor openings on to irevolving riddles placed horizontally. Tho finer portions pass through into the mixing machine, into which regulated portions of other matter are allowed. Dry sweepings are also added, and the whole, after being thoroughly mixed by revolving blades, passes into a railway waggon beneath ready for despatch. There is a huge sale amongst farmers of this manure, and last year a revenue of £5824 was secured thereby, while stable manure yielded a further signees of manure refunded £8292 12s lOd, carriage paid. Reverting to the treatment of tho domestic refuse, that portion which does not fall through the riddles to form manure travels along the riddle and is forced cut on to a carrier. Hero articles of any value, such as iron, meat-tins, and fruit-tins, glass, bones, etc., arc picked off, while

the remainder, chiefly light, useless material, falls from the carrier on to a range of furnaces below, where it is turned into clinker, and is later sold as a mixture for concrete-making. Last year a revenue of £1651 was obtained from this source. But the best feature of the department’s administration, is yet to come. Carefully as a market is fostered for every possible product there yet remains a considerable quantity of material which must be dumped somewhere In former years this was much more considerable than is the case now with the improved methods of tiVat njent and consumption. But in 1879 the problem of disposing of huge accumulations of waste led the corporation to secure on a 31 years’ improvement lease an area of 68 acres of bog land. Other areas were later added, making a total of 142 acres. The first stop was to drain the bog and then spread the material. For some years potatoes were the principal crop, and these found a ready sale. In later years hay and oats 'have been grown, all being used in the departmental stables. The result of the whole affair was that the council found it could enhance the value of waste land immeasurably, and with this illustration before it of the folly of merely leasing land it decided to purchase outright for the future. Since that time the corporation hus purchased no fewer than 15 farms, or has constructed 15 farms out of previously useless land, and the value of the properties at the present time ranges from £IOOO to £50,000 each, the total value being as already stated, not less than £365,165 13s Id.

The method adopted was first to drain bog areas and then to deposit soil, 100,000 tons having been so used in 1909, and 86,000 tons in 1910. After that, crops suited to the soil are grown and either sold in the general market or used in the stables of the cleansing department or other tion departments. The tale of last year’s operations is told in the following figures, showing the produce obtained by the cor poration Hay, 816 tons ; grass, 102 tons; straw. 349 tons; turnips, 704 tons; potatoes. 259 tons; oats, 1378 bolls; wheat, 449 bolls; and barley, 111 bolls. The total value of the produce was £6767 5a Bd. These farms, some of which the writer had the opportunity of visiting, are in every way models of agricultural activity. Every detail is strictly watched, and the most careful management is exercised. With them in its possession the corporation finds itself able to give attention to anothef pressing problem when it arises—that of unemployment. On them work can always be provided for a certain number of the unemployed class, and their usefulness in this way is in itself something considerable. An axiom of science has it that matter never disappears —its form only changes. The operations of this department afford in many ways an apt illustration of that. For instance, each of the hundreds of horses pulling refuse through the streets of Glasgow is doing its work on fodder grown on former refuse; every bone in his load is turned into phosphates to grow crops to give strength to new generations of beasts; every tin is saved to make new tins; every bit of glass will help to form a new bottle, every scrap of paper will again pass into useful service. So the rouna goes on, and with it all the humble occupation of cleaning up a city takes on a decided aspect of interest.