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46
The particular difficulty I have met with in Hackney is connected
with the disposal of the house refuse in connection with these
buildings.
The blocks of flats in the district contain from two to five floors.
The arrangements for the deposit of the house refuse until removed
by the local authority differ. (a) In a few blocks portable dust-bins
are provided for each tenement to hold the week's refuse which is kept
either on the landing near the door of the tenement or inside the
scullery. (b) In others a shoot is formed in the walls of the blocks,
with doors opening into the passages at the level of each floor, to
receive the house refuse from the tenements at that level. At the
foot of the shoot is a chamber near the doors of the tenements on the
ground floor. Into this the refuse falls and remains until removed
by the local dustmen. (c) Another arrangement, worse than the last,
is somewhat similar with the exception that the opening to the shoot is
in each kitchen. In some the openings are closed by a simple wooden
shutter sliding in grooves, in others an iron drum, one-third of which
is open, is arranged horizontally, and is worked by a lever. When
the lever is depressed the drum is ready to receive the refuse, and by
elevating the lever the drum revolves, throws the dust into the shoot,
and is then supposed to cut off all effluvia from the shoot; but as a
matter of fact on testing it is found they are not air-tight, and it can
easily be demonstrated in all that the shoot ventilates into the living
room.
The common chamber or dust-bin to each shoot is usually in these
cases at the rear of the block, where it is emptied once a week.
It is obvious that neither of these arrangements is satisfactory.
In the first case, the presence of foul smelling dust-bins close to the
doors of living rooms and in passages alive with children is clearly
bad.
The same remark applies to the arrangement of shoots with doors
opening on the landing. Practically the shoots are ventilated into
the passages, and this is especially the fact when the chamber receiv-