Column: A history of waste collection
By Amanda Haffele
With no regulations or means of properly disposing of trash, people would toss their trash in the streets, bury it in pits near the house, or burn it on site. Many ancient cities grew on top of their discarded wastes. Streets and gutters would fill up causing homes to be submerged and forcing people to build on top of their waste.
The earliest efforts of managing waste date back to 3000 B.C. in ancient Crete where large holes were dug and filled with waste and then covered with dirt. In 2000 B.C., China developed methods of composting and recycling bronze items for later use.
But the earliest known waste management ordinance dates back to 500 B.C. in Athens, Greece. Residents had to travel one mile outside of town before they could dump their trash.
Around the time of The Black Plague in 1350 A.D., Britain introduced their first garbage men, possibly the first official garbage men in history. They were called “rakers” and their job was to rake up the trash into a cart on a weekly basis.
Around this time, Britain also passed a law mandating a clean front yard to reduce the amount of garbage being burned in town. Finally, they passed another law in 1407, desperate to get residents to comply, declaring waste must be stored inside until rakers could remove it.
Trash wasn’t considered problematic or a human health issue until populations began to boom. Around the time of the Industrial Revolution, 1760-1840, is when the collection and disposal of trash began to change. Britain built 250 “destructors” that burned waste and produced electricity from steam. However, they were later abandoned due to the large amount of flying ash and paper debris. Around 1757, Benjamin Franklin started the first street cleaning service and encouraged the public to dig pits and bury their waste.
The first incinerator on American soil was built in 1885, on Governors Island, New York. It didn’t take long for other large cities to follow suit. Horse- drawn waste carts were replaced with trucks after WWI, making collection of garbage easier and faster. Modern day garbage trucks, with hydraulic blades to push trash to the rear of the truck, were invented around 1950.
Unfortunately, despite these collection improvements, garbage was dumped in the most convenient location, the ocean, wetlands, or any given wasteland, until the U.S. Supreme Court stepped in and banned the dumping of wastes into oceans in 1934.
Landfills (‘dumps’ with some sort of regulation and liners to protect groundwater) were constructed in the 1940’s and started gaining traction as a new form of disposal. After WWII, open burning and backyard burning of waste was banned in most areas.
Recycling wasn’t a major concern or given much effort, until the 1960s, when 33 percent of U.S. cities separated their wastes in some manner. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was developed by President Nixon in 1970, and six years later, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act was created to plan for recycling, resource conservation and waste management.
Toward the end of the 1980s, the EPA set a 25 percent waste reduction/recycling goal which was achieved shortly afterward, and 26 states created laws regulating recycling in the ’80s. Recycling became state law in Wisconsin in 1990.
In 1991, the EPA set standards for landfill groundwater protection, monitoring and post closure care. These standards were very significant for future sites because they demanded standards that would ultimately change and improve the future of landfill operations.
Meanwhile, more than 3,000 household hazardous waste programs have been setup in all 50 states. Portage County’s permanent collection program began in the early 2000s, and is open to all Portage Co. Call 715-346-1931 to make an appointment.
Waste and Recycling Workers Week
In honor of Waste and Recycling Workers Week (formerly known as Global Garbage Man Day), beginning June 17, take a moment and thank your garbage man or woman for all of the hard work they do year-round.
Site attendants, curbside haulers, landfill workers, and recycling sorters work hard collecting, recycling, and disposing of your waste materials. Take a moment to thank them for collecting your items in frigid temperatures, sweltering heat, pouring rain, snow storms, and at the crack of dawn.
Thank them for lifting heavy trash cans, sorting through dirty recyclables, and for working in a profession that has twice the fatality rate of police officers, and nearly seven times the fatality rate of firefighters.
Thank your garbage man or woman by properly sorting your recycling, flattening all cardboard boxes, slowing down to get around trucks, not overfilling garbage containers, with a thank-you note, a bottle of water, or a simple heartfelt “Thanks for all you do!”
Amanda Haffele is the Portage County Solid Waste Director and she works at the Material Recovery Facility, 600 Moore Rd., in the Plover Industrial Park. It can be reached at 715.346.1931 or www.co.portage.wi.us/department/solidwaste.