News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1913-12-17
A Rubbish IncineratOr

Hardwick, or any other town of its size
ought to install an lncinerating plant. !
believe if this was done it would be able
to pay for itself in a very short time.
In New York City before 1896. garbage
and rubbish of all kinds was loaded into
the same carts and carried to the same
dumping boats. The rag pickers and
bone pickers paid the city for the priv
ilege of sorting out what they wanted
while the rest of this terrible mixture
was taken ten miles out to sea and
thrown overheard.
Naturally, the wind and storms drove
part of it back to shore again. Running
water has to go one hundred miles or
over to purify itself, therefore, you can
| imagine what dreadful results there
must have been as the Hudson River is
an arm of the ocean and rises and falls
with the tide.
There, would be the same results in
small towns: people think if they throw
things into the river, they have disposed
OF them !entirely, but really it would have
been better to have carried the rubbish
into an open field, where the sunlight
might. get to it, In this way the germs
wouldghave been killed. but In water
they multiply very fast.
Many cases of typhoid fever are caused
by people not realizing the danger of
thro wing garbage or refuse near or into
water. While this refuse may not do
any harm to the nearest inhabitants, this
same city may indirectly cause great
many deaths in other cities.
Newburyport, situated at the mouth of
the MerIimac. River, as rule, had water
that came FROM pure springs at a dis
tance from the river. In January, 1898,
about thirty people in different parts of
the city came down with typhoid fever,
After an investigation it appeared that
the springs hsdinot been giving enough
water to supply the entire city, and to
piece out, some one had turned the river
water.iuto pipes. This had been going
on for some time when typhoid fever
broke out,in Lawrence just above New
buryport. Shortly after, the same trouble
reached New burypOrt, and no one doub
ed that the microbes had travelled down
by water from Lawrence.
At Caspian Lake, in the summer of
1911, abont.tifty people came down with
typhoid fever. Upon investigation it was
found that campers had thrown refuse
into the lake.. (which supplied the town
of Greensboro with drinking water.
There is only one way to get rid of
disease arising from garbage: this is TO
have AN incnerating plant with we'll
established method of collecting garbage,
rubbish, ashes, and street sweepings.
This refuse can thus be disposed of
and more than that, can
even be turned to good account.
In New. York, after the waste has been
it is unloaded with shovels
and pitchfOrks; then it is put into mon
strous, kettles with great deal of water
and steamed steadily for eight hours.
Beside other fragments and remnants of
lOOu, Luo poldGO SklUS anu panama SklDS
for nearly four million people, dead
horses, cats, and dogs go into the d.
gester.
When the steaming is over, the cooked |
garbage is sent into presses, where |
powerful machinery squeezes out the |
water and fat cooling now separates the |
two, and the mass of grayish, browDish |
fat which rises to the top is packed in |
barrels to be sold in Europe and America |
Tor soap. for grease, for pomatum, and |
for various other purposes.
There are three important things an
incinerating plant does: it turns garbage !
and dead animals into soap, fat, and fer
it sells part of the rubbish and
burns up the rest. At the same time tie
heat that comes from the burning is so
great that it is used to ran the engine
which moves the belt; most of all, it
helps TO keep town or city clean, for it
heads off disease microbes and preserves
the health of its citizens. This is what
every town should do for itself.
MARTHA WAKEFIELD.