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while employees pick from its surface various elements of the
refuse, e.g., paper, rags, glass, and other material such as bottles,
bones, tins, etc., which may have escaped the previous screening
by machinery. The bones are placed in covered bins, to await
removal: the paper is sorted into various grades, mechanically
pressed and bound, to await removal: the rags and bottles are
sorted, also to await removal. Matter which one would expect
to be burnt in the home, is placed in the dustbin in those dwellings
where coal fires do not exist, and where all heating and cooking
is done by gas or electricity. It therefore actually happens that
dressings from discharging cancerous, venereal or tuberculous
wounds are placed in the refuse bin, together with paper derived
from all manner of sources, bottles which had contained noxious
fluids and other offensive matter.
The system of refuse disposal as a whole is one of far-reaching
public health importance. The amount of refuse necessary
to be collected in West Ham averages about '250 tons daily, and
is at present dealt with by two different methods; that from the
Northern part of the Borough being carted away and dumped at
Temple Mills ; that in the Southern part being barged away under
contract from Quadrant Street Wharf. Neither of these methods
is altogether satisfactory, though over a long period of years no
definite nuisance appears to have arisen therefrom.
The problem of refuse disposal is admittedly a very difficult
one: it should not, however, be beyond the power of modern
science to evolve a method by which offensive material can be
destroyed on a suitable site without giving rise to any sort of
nuisance.
Summary of Work of Sanitary Inspectors.
No. of Complaints Received and Investigated 5669
No. of Inspections—
Dwelling Houses 12725
Newly-infected Houses 8291
Common Lodging Houses 38
Slaughter Houses 175
Bakehouses 287
Dairies 178
Cowsheds 20
Milkshops 159
Retail Shops (e.g., Eel Pie Shops, Ice Cream Shops,
etc.) 7693
Schools 10
Canal Boats —
Offensive Trades 244
Factories (including Food Factories) 703
Workshops 267
Laundries
42