Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork
Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork
Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork
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Chapter 1: Dust and AshesChapter 1: Dust and ashesWaste used to be something of <strong>the</strong> past, a part of life turned to dust and ash. Formuch of <strong>the</strong> 19 th Century, dust and ash was all that went into <strong>the</strong> domestic dust bin.Everything else was separated and recycled one way or ano<strong>the</strong>r. Even shit – politelyknown as ‘night soil’ – was taken out along with organic wastes to fertilise fields. Or atleast some of it was. The rest was thrown into <strong>the</strong> streets where waste pickers competedwith dogs, pigs and crows for anything of value.The business of waste was nei<strong>the</strong>r clean nor orderly. In <strong>the</strong> rapidly growing cities of<strong>the</strong> industrialising world, <strong>the</strong> luxurious houses of <strong>the</strong> elite classes rose above <strong>the</strong> filthand contrasted with <strong>the</strong> jerry built tenements housing <strong>the</strong> mass of working people.In Manchester, at <strong>the</strong> centre of imperial Britain’s industrial revolution, about onesixth of <strong>the</strong> population lived in cellars “with walls oozing human waste from nearbycesspools” [Pichtel 2005: 26]. Elsewhere poor people were crowded around narrowcourts with <strong>the</strong>ir excrement heaped in <strong>the</strong> middle. According to a report of <strong>the</strong> PoorLaw Commissioners “whole courts up to <strong>the</strong> very doors of <strong>the</strong> houses were coveredwith filth …” [quoted in Pichtel 2005: 27]. Such conditions were replicated in <strong>the</strong> ‘oldworld’ of Europe and <strong>the</strong> ‘new world’ in America.Waste pickers, scavenging for bones, clo<strong>the</strong>s and coal, were amongst <strong>the</strong> poorest. Mostdid not have a secure roof over <strong>the</strong>ir heads and worked and lived in <strong>the</strong> filth of <strong>the</strong>city, vulnerable to diseases and periodic epidemics of cholera and dysentery. Epidemicswere not confined to <strong>the</strong> poor, however, and once <strong>the</strong> link between disease and dirt wasmade, 1 middle class activism demanded sanitary improvements from city authorities.This marked <strong>the</strong> origins of modern waste management and <strong>the</strong> construction of what USresearcher Hea<strong>the</strong>r Rogers describes as “a border separating <strong>the</strong> clean and useful from<strong>the</strong> unclean and dangerous” [2005: 3]. Moreover, cleanliness was found to be good forbusiness. The middle classes no longer deserted <strong>the</strong> city in <strong>the</strong> face of epidemics andclean streets enhanced property prices, made for easier transport of goods and workersand for an altoge<strong>the</strong>r more pleasurable shopping experience. From <strong>the</strong> start, cities1 The link was made by Louis Pasteur, Robert Koch and Ignaz Semmelweis in second half of <strong>the</strong> 19 th century.<strong>Wasting</strong> <strong>the</strong> <strong>Nation</strong> - groundWork - 9 -