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Public Works & Utilities


In our century

In our century

Cities develop methods, mechanisms and regulations for residential solid waste collection and disposal.
  • Written by American City & County Administrator
  • 1st February 2009

In March 1910, The American City published the first of a seven-part series about the importance and general practices of collecting and disposing municipal solid waste. Written by William Morse, a consulting sanitary engineer, the series described how cities and towns were managing the food waste, discarded items and ashes from residences, as well as the debris that collected in the streets, about half of which was animal waste.

Proper sanitation practices, the author wrote, were important for beautification as well as public health, as demonstrated by typhoid epidemics in four American cities that had been caused by contaminated food and water supplies. And, if those reasons were not enough for city leaders’ action, “Certainly there is [no other city service] wherein neglect, delay, or interruption of the work causes greater annoyance, or calls forth more vigorous protest from the people,” Morse wrote.

Many cities contracted with private haulers to collect household waste, but they often failed to manage them closely. Without oversight, service could be unreliable or irresponsible, so a growing number of cities were either limiting the number of contractors or doing the work themselves. Several cities paid contractors to collect paper, in particular, removing a large volume of household waste from the municipal disposal stream and allowing those companies to keep the profits from selling the paper for reuse.

As engineering schools began adding the subject of “civic cleanliness and sanitary treatment and disposal of municipal waste” to their curriculum, a growing number of professionals were joining cities with new ideas for disposal methods that reduced the volume of garbage, recovered valuable elements — such as grease and oil — and eased collection for residents.

Previous “In our century” Stories

  • In our century – November 1909
    Occupancy laws and social workers emerge in the early 1900s to clean up inner-city neighborhoods.
  • The way we were
    Publisher’s son remembers American City & County‘s roots.
Tags: Public Works & Utilities

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    Road maintenance is a good place to incorporate sustainable practices; predictive data analysis can help
    One way to achieve sustainability is to work to extend the life of an agency’s existing assets, says Matt Sprague, industry strategy director – local government at Trimble, a technology company that offers a variety of integrated infrastructure solutions. The solutions may enable improved decision-making by connecting the right information with the right administrators and […]
  • water systems
    Compliance clock is ticking: Community water systems have one year to complete a Service Line Inventory
    In about 12 months, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will expect all public water systems to have completed a Service Line Inventory, which is a complete accounting of the material of every service connection in the public network that delivers drinking water. The main purpose of the regulation (Lead and Copper Rule Revisions, or LCRR) […]
  • Adding resilience to roads without reconstruction
    In Vermont this summer, torrential rains caused flooding of historic proportions, washing out roads or covering them in feet of mud. And in some coastal areas, sea level rise is making ‘sunny-day’ flooding a twice-monthly occurrence when the moon’s cycles pull tides higher. Often, the hardest hit areas during such extreme weather events are communities’ […]
  • materials
    Public buyers have several options to keep problem materials out of the waste stream
    Cities and counties are taking multiple steps towards sustainability, says Curran Hughes, co-founder and president of Renegade Plastics, a fabric product manufacturer that offers an alternative to PVC (polyvinyl chloride)-coated fabrics. Its low carbon coated fabrics curtail plastic waste and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, according to the company. “Local governments are doing a nice job […]

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