This article traces the origins of three disposal strategies within infrastructures for waste management. The history of the development of waste infrastructures is a complex one because its relationship with society is closely based on changing the understanding of hygiene and even the perception of defilement. The type of waste has changed drastically since the 19th century, from organic to petrochemical based. Therefore it needs the most appropriate technology for its disposal. Further, the disposal of waste is increasingly used as a resource either through recycling or reuse, based on its material composition. Thus it requires its own specialized infrastructure.
Sewers: Engineering triumphs of London and Paris
The first sewers in Europe have been traced to the Roman Empire and subsequently in the 1370s in Paris and in the 1540s in London. These sewers had direct outfalls into the Rivers Seine and Thames respectively. For the rest of the garbage, it was common practice in Europe to throw it out directly onto the streets.
London
In the beginning of the 19th century, the common method of sewage disposal was to direct household sewage to cesspools located close to the houses. It would be cleared out by ‘night men’ who disposed of it at nearby farms for a profit. Outside the city, the loss of common lands to enclosures spurred consolidation of land and increase in productivity; it also meant large sections of the rural population were left with no choice but to move into the city. At the same time, innovations in manufacturing processes were marked by a shift to powered, special-purpose built machinery like the Spinning Jenny, power loom, cheaper production of cast iron, mass production of steel and the steam engine. Within 50 years, London saw its population triple to 3 million. This put enormous strain on the existing sewer system.
A key institution called the Metropolitan Commission of Sewers was set up to work out the best scheme possible for London. Joseph Bazalgette and his team focused on the purification of the Thames that provided London’s drinking water by creating an intercepting system. 1858 was the year of the Great Stink (of the Thames) and Parliament approved Bazalgette’s £ 3 million sewer system within two and a half weeks.
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Bazalgette viewed the design of four main lines as the backbone for a sewer system that would act as a catalyst for future improvements. In effect, he worked with existing branches of sewer lines and created new ones only after the mains were in place. The design of the sewers was guided by several different calculations. It was conceptualised as a linear flow that would pass through pumping stations and would then be released back into the river as a waste product. He predicted a doubling of the population density, as he understood the topography and soils in various areas and created detailed tables for each district. The most important phase of 82 kms was completed within nine years. By 1865, 160 km of intercepting sewers and 720 km of street sewers had been built.
In hindsight, the system has paid for itself several times over because it was constructed for a much larger capacity than was necessary at that time ensuring the permanence of London’s urban fabric.
Paris
Montfaucon, the sole city dump for Paris for over 50 years, had an enduring reputation. Bodies of tortured criminals who had been denied burial, household garbage, fecal matter and rotting carcasses from slaughterhouses had left a lasting impression on a generation. The existing sewers were used by the revolutionaries for their activities to overthrow the monarchy during the first French Revolution becoming symbolic of the anarchy lurking underneath the order of the streets above.
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With the cycle of revolutions, suspension of any semblance of municipal works and subsequent outbreaks of cholera in 1832 and 1849, Parisians needed a new strategy. During the tenure of the head of the Paris sewer system, HC Emmery, many innovations emerged in cement mortar allowing the engineers to build curved sewer floors making flushing easier. The use of millstone reduced the cost and duration of construction. By 1840 the system had reached 96 kms.
Once the connection between cholera and drinking water was established, there was an urgency to build proper sewage infrastructure in all the major cities of Europe. Paris finally saw Napolean III pursuing urban renewal, transforming both the city above and the sewer system below to improve sanitation. The prefect of the Seine, Baron George Haussmann and his engineer Eugene Belgrand, understood that all buildings would need to be connected to the sewer, therefore all streets would need to be equipped with them.
The sewers were again large enough to allow water mains to run through and also permit workmen to carry out repair work. The sewers were designed to follow the natural basin of the Seine River. To cleanse the sewer periodically, they devised a system of reservoirs and created barriers: a dam backing up the sewage. This created enough pressure to move the sediments, and sluice carts or boats accomplished the final flushing. By the end of Napolean III’s reign in 1870, the sewer system had grown to 773 kms.
Origins of Sanitary Landfill
Sanitary landfills originated first in England in the city of Bedford in 1915 where it was called ‘controlled tipping’. Both the United Kingdom and the United States experimented with them through the 1920s and1930s. Instead of simple dumping, garbage was moved with mechanized tractors; the depth of the garbage was maintained evenly in layers so as to compact it in a systematic fashion and it was most important to alternate garbage layers with soil, ash and dirt to prevent odours, vermin, fires and litter. Scavengers were banned from these landfills. After World War II, cities saw an exponential rise in volumes and types of waste. European cities, already short on land, turned to incinerators to reduce its volume.
On the other hand, the United States saw an exponential jump in the number of landfills due to easy availability of land. Post World War II, the invention of synthetic organic compounds including a wide range of pesticides and fertilisers were available for mass consumption. Accordingly, waste had changed its composition from paper and organic matter to a much more toxic stew. By the 1960s there was a realization about the environmental damage synthetic chemicals like DDT could cause, as highlighted by Rachel Carson in her famous book Silent Spring. Landfills were causing enormous air pollution with release of methane and ground water pollution in spite of the liners laid down.
The US EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) estimated that even in 1990, over 75% of the landfills were polluting ground water with leachate in spite of advances in technology for laying down clay liners. The Mobro 4000 or the ‘Gar-barge’ incident in 1987 highlighted a looming garbage crisis where a barge full of garbage was not allowed to dock anywhere until New York accepted it back, incinerated the garbage and buried the ash locally.
The life of a landfill is estimated as the time it is actively receiving garbage. This is a fallacy, since the methane emissions and leachate from landfills will need to be monitored for at least a century or two. Garbologist William Rathje’s Garbage Project revealed that with modern clay liners the garbage does not putrefy into an organic mass but stays in a state of preservation even after 50 years. Landfilling may seem cheaper in the shorter run since long-term maintenance is not included in the tipping fees nor is the land useable anymore except for surface treatment like golf courses or parks.
Incinerators
We have probably incinerated waste for centuries going as far back as the discovery of fire. However, the spectre of a modern incinerator generates images of runaway air pollution and dioxins we are unable to control. While the technology is now quite sophisticated and air pollution has been drastically reduced while producing energy, it has failed to gain acceptance in the minds of the people. The main disadvantage is its requirement of upfront capital costs. The other reason for its non-acceptance is because incineration can only be successful where very stringent controls are followed, waste separated and there are trained operators that government bodies can guarantee for the long term; the first two conditions are compromised on regularly. Incinerators hold a tremendous lure for treating municipal waste, as it is able to compress the volume down by over 95%.
Interest in incinerators in various countries has grown or waned depending upon the availability of land and new technology that promises to consume noxious gases given out by ever more complex petro/chemical products. Sorting of waste for incineration also needs to be highly evolved. For example, a new waste to energy plant in New Delhi is unable to function at high capacity; instead it spews toxic gases because of the high content of moisture found mixed with burnable trash.
Japan incinerates upto 80% of its trash due to lack of landfill capacity. Citizens sort it out as per their municipality guidelines, which can be highly complex, making the operations of their waste-to-energy (WTE) plants highly efficient. Tokyo itself has 21 WTE plants within high-density neighbourhoods. The waste incinerator plant has continued to upgrade to new technologies to minimise dioxin emissions and has reinvented itself as a community centre with heated pools for the elderly.
The European countries – Denmark, Norway and Sweden - were incinerating around 50% of their waste while recycling over 40% of it in 2013. While zero waste advocates cite lower recycling rates in countries that incinerate as a case against WTEs, there does lie a dichotomy that countries like Sweden as well as Germany and the Netherlands are becoming so efficient at recycling that they do not have enough trash to meet the heating plant’s needs.
Sweden achieved up to 47% recycling rate in 2015 while importing trash from other countries like the UK and Norway to generate heat and electricity at an efficient rate.
In conclusion, we can see that the history of urban waste is a history of urbanisation. Urbanisation has its roots in the industrial revolution, but waste management has its roots in the age of reason and industrialisation. This age in Europe and America set up the scene for various discourses about democracy, citizenship, scientific and philosophical reason, rational thinking and social values. The urbanisation of Europe coincided with the crisis of waste and the innovations it spurred in western cities is tied to the development of ideas of public health resulting in cutting-edge improvements in public utilities that still survive and serve its public 150 years later.
As awareness of the environmental costs of having landfills and incinerators within one’s neighbourhood grows, it is harder to cite NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) projects. And without intensive sorting, a high rate of recycling is still not a viable option in most countries. Advocates of Zero Waste believe its possible to recycle up to 90%. Few concepts like ‘cradle to cradle’ have tried to tackle manufacturing responsibly through a business model. The idea of a circular economy is slowly taking hold; industrial ecology is now a developing field. Landfill mining is not a new concept, but is an interesting way to look at waste. These ideas present tremendous opportunities to creatively develop and make mainstream ideas that have long been on the fringes of the environmental movement.
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