Ud af røret? - Dansk Center for Byhistorie

ecology has an increasing critique of the conception of Tout-à-l’égout s being
the ‘best’ solution; however, their workshops and studies reveal, that the
sewerage system itself had been institutionalized. It had become an institution
as a comprehensive system of pipes with very large and costly centralized
and controlled treatment plants; with technicians, who through their
training and professional practice had incorporated routines and who managed
the systems. In addition, the studies by the urban ecologists emphasizes
that ‘toilet culture’, habits, and behaviour of the inhabitants are difficult
to change, as one has been brought up accustomed to systems of the
‘pull-to-flush mentality’, where the recycling of ‘our own fertilisers’ not
seems an attractive option. The urban ecologists emphasize, that there
thus are a series of barriers built into the sewerage systems, and this dissertation
shows that this both practice and mentality is linked to that which
was a sensible and complete solution around 1900, where pipes, water and
the Sea was the means to a sustainable and modern city. The dissertation
thus shows how water forms an integral part of every phase of the sewage
technology; the central role of water in the stench trap to render both smell
and sight less unpleasant; the use of water in the flushing and cleaning of
the toilet; rainwater as a means of transporting the excrements in the pipes;
and the active ‘Streams’ of the ocean as the ultimate receiver of the waste.
The study does not aim to resolve issues concerning the sewerage system,
sewage water, and toilet systems of the future. Rather it points to fundamental
differences between Tout-a-l’egout— which, in the custody of the
municipality, is a large, centralized infrastructural system—and the visions
of the urban ecologists, as to small, varied and locally managed personintensive
endeavours. Whereas it had been a conservative and archaic
standpoint to treat night soil as a resource at the Sanitary Congress of
1858, it would be regarded as visionary among the scientists of the 1990’s,
leading to scientific investigations and technical experiments along this line
of thought.
The study shows that solutions which are regarded as being ‘complete’,
‘best’ or ‘environmentally sound’ during a specific period or within a specific
context do not necessarily remain fixed and unchanging structures. Technical
solutions, scientific theories, wastewater and the problem issues being
raised shift over time. But these changes, debates and the processes of establishment
always take their outset in that which already ‘exists’. As such,
the historical context comes to have central bearing on the development,
which follows.
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