INGENIEUR
UN’s 2018 World Economic and Social Survey,
which concludes that they can help the world to
change for the better, achieve the Sustainable
Development Goals, and address climate change.
The study also warns that the widespread
introduction of these tools must be accompanied
by appropriate, effective policies to help countries
avoid pitfalls and minimise the economic and
social costs of technology-related disruption.
History of Waste Management -
Wikipedia
Following the onset of industrialisation and
sustained urban growth of large population
centres in England, the buildup of waste in the
cities caused a rapid deterioration in the levels
of sanitation and general quality of urban life.
The streets became choked with filth due to the
lack of waste clearance regulations. Calls for the
establishment of a municipal authority with waste
removal powers were mooted as early as 1751 by
Corbyn Morris in London, who proposed that “as
the preservation of the health of the people is of
great importance, it is proposed that the cleaning
of this city should be put under one uniform public
management, and all the filth be ... conveyed by
the Thames to proper distance in the country”.
The first occurrence of organised solid waste
management system appeared in London in the
late 18 th century. A waste collection and resource
recovery system was established around the ‘dustyards’.
The main constituent of municipal waste
was the coal ash (‘dust’), which had a market
value for brick-making and as a soil improver.
Such profitability encouraged dust-contractors to
recover effectively 100% of the residual wastes
remaining after readily saleable items and
materials had been removed by the informal sector
in the streets (‘rag-and-bone men’). Therefore, this
was an early example of organised, municipal-wide
solid waste management. The dust-yard system
had been working successfully up to mid-1850s
when the market value of ‘dust’ collapsed. It
was important in facilitating a relatively smooth
transition to an institutionalised, municipally-run
solid waste management system in England.
In the mid-19 th century, spurred by increasingly
devastating cholera outbreaks and the emergence
of a public health debate that the first consolidated
legislation on the issue emerged. Highly influential
in this new focus was the report, The Sanitary
Condition of the Labouring Population in 1842
of the social reformer, Edwin Chadwick, in which
he argued for the importance of adequate waste
removal and management facilities to improve
the health and well-being of the city’s population.
Chadwick’s proposals were based on the miasmatic
theory of disease transmission, which was proven
to be false following the turn of the 1900s.
The Nuisance Removal and Disease Prevention
Act of 1846 began what was to be a steadily
evolving process of the provision of regulated
waste management in London. The Metropolitan
Board of Works was the first citywide authority that
centralised sanitation regulation for the rapidly
expanding city and the Public Health Act 1875
made it compulsory for every household to deposit
their weekly waste in ‘moveable receptacles’ for
disposal - the first concept for a dust-bin.
The dramatic increase in waste for disposal
led to the creation of the first incineration plants
or as they were then called, ‘destructors’. In
1874, the first incinerator was built in Nottingham
by Manlove, Alliott & Co. Ltd. to the design of
Alfred Fryer. However, these were met with
opposition on account of the large amounts of
ash they produced and which wafted over the
neighbouring areas.
Similar municipal systems of waste disposal
sprung up at the turn of the 20 th century in other
large cities of Europe and North America. In
1895, New York City became the first city in the
United States (US) with public-sector garbage
management.
Early garbage removal trucks were simply open
bodied dump trucks pulled by a team of horses.
They became motorised in the early part of the
20 th century and the first close-body trucks to
eliminate odours with a dumping lever mechanism
were introduced in the 1920s in Britain. These
were soon equipped with ‘hopper mechanisms’
where the scooper was loaded at floor level and
then hoisted mechanically to deposit the waste
in the truck. The Garwood Load Packer was the
first truck in 1938 to incorporate a hydraulic
compactor.
In the 19 th century in the US, cities often
became choked with horse manure. While the
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