HEALTH NOTES

Taranaki Daily News, 12 October 1929, Page 28 (Supplement)

HEALTH NOTES

CLEAN YARDS. DISPOSAL OF GARBAGE. (Contributed by Department of Health.) One of the first essentials of the development of good health ie the keeping of a proper kind of home, and an essential feature of such a home is the satisfactory disposal of waste products known as garbage. A home with a yard around it has advantages. It improves the appearance of the home, affords a place for the children to play, and a garden space providing a supply of fresh vegetables and flowers should take a pride in keeping the yard and surroundings as sanitary as possible, for often the dirty back yard, the unweeded garden, “grown rank and gone to seed” indicates undesirable sanitary conditions within the home. If the busy housewife keeps a home in a clean and healthy state it behoves the husband to see that the home surroundings are also kept clean and\ orderly, though it may mean an occasional absence from his favourite bowling green, golf course, cricket ground? or tennis court on some Saturday afternoon. The physical effort occasioned by such endeavours will prove very beneficial to him, besides, the pleasure of seeing some tangible results of his muscular endeavours is a compensation worthy of the effort. Ordinarily the most common class of nuisance met with in yards is the garbage heap. This garbage heap may beconie a real menace to health and order and tidiness as it begins to ferment and decay. It U generally composed of a large variety of substances, ashes being always a chief constituent. If wholly composed of ashes it would not be so dangerous; that is, not so great a nuisance, but even' then the dispersal of ae.hes over the premises in question and the neighbouring premises and houses would be no slight inconvenience and annoyance once the heap grows dry and gusty winds prevail. But the heap always contains far more injurious matter. In it are sure to be found bones and scraps of meat, vegetable peelings, and rotten vegetables, oyster shells, old and filthy rags, pieces of carpet, mats, sweepings from the floor, empty cans, and sometimes manure. HARMFUL GERMS. All this mess once it gets thoroughly moistened by rain and warmed by the hot sun, develops very unpleasant and objectionable qualities’. It breeds flies by the ten thousand which go everywhere, even to the milk and bread and butter upon the table, carrying along with them upon their bodies and legs minute quantities of this abominable concoction and millions of harmful germs. In properly-conducted houses th;» garbage heap is not present, because not necessary. The most injurious parts of it, wastes from the table, like meat scraps, bones, vegetable peelings, and so forth- should be burned. Another good plaxx is to place garbage in covered metallic containers that render the contents inaccessible to dogs and other animals, and do not permit the breeding of flies. It is preferable to wrap all garbage in paper before being deposited in the container. This keeps the cans clean and prevents rapid fermentation in summer. Garbage cans should be thoroughly scoured from time to time. Certain waste products can also be buried in the garden, and thereby be a means of enriching tne soil.

Accumulating rubbish also creates a fire hazard and is not merely offensive to the aesthetic senses but affords an opportunity in certain localities for mosquito breeding in tin cans and. other discarded receptacles that become filled with rain water and house the. insect larva? and pupae until maturity. Ashes and dust are easily moved by the wind and when blown aboiit irritate eyes, nose, and throat and predispose to bacterial infection. The indirect relations of refuse disposal to the public health are therefore maay and. the sanitary disposal of waste, more particularly garbage, is important.