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In-Depth Information
earlier in this text, its use decreased rapidly during the inter-war period. Moreover,
new recovery processes became obsolete, particularly because waste collection had
led to the debasement of materials. In fact, there was an unprecedented increase in
the volume of garbage, much more rapid than its increase in weight. This consis-
tently lower density was due to the proliferation of packaging, newspapers and, in
some cities, to the decline in the quantity of ash released, which was very variable
as it was dependent on which speci
c local heating processes were used at the time.
Vehicles traditionally used for garbage collection were often motorized, and no
longer appropriate as they
lled up quickly resulting in an increase in service
required and higher collection costs. Packer trucks (with compressing device)
gained popularity in Europe from the 1930s onward
57
and provided the solution as
they compressed garbage; however, they also altered it in the process.
At the same time and partially as a result of the situations described above, many
experiments ended in
s recovery
plant, mentioned above, requested the modest sum of 20,000 francs per year and a
free supply of household rubbish and mud from the local government in order to
proceed with what they thought to be a highly pro
nancial failure. In 1923, entrepreneurs of Nice
'
table recovery project. In 1926,
when the plants were commissioned, the city was required to increase its funding by
50 times, to one million francs per year. In 1930, all the plants were replaced by a
mass-burning plant.
58
By and large, the operating costs of the recovery plants
proved to be much higher than the revenues from the sale of their products. The
same was true for sewage farms and led to their eventual abandonment in Europe
and North America (they continued to be used in Mexico however). As for energy
recovery, the costs outweighed the returns: to use an example from Europe, the
1953 study by the Organization for European Economic Co-operation revealed that
a cost of 1,150
1,715 FF ton
−
1
(amortization, interest on the investment, operation
and maintenance costs) had to be factored in for revenues of 270 FF ton
−
1
up to,
infrequently, 1,500 FF ton
−
1
.
59
The prevailing view of administrators was that urban excreta was no longer
pro
-
60
for society. This evolution is
table, and henceforth an
“
unavoidable burden
”
re
ected in the use of the French word
“
d
é
chet
”
for household garbage from the
1930s. The idea of pro
t from waste appears to have been abandoned even earlier in
Great Britain and the United States. Consequently, techniques associated with
garbage collection were no longer developed with usefulness in mind, but rather
with the aim for disposal or storage at a lower cost. Four techniques were primarily
used: incineration without utilization for energy purposes (although some cities
continued to use this process) with the sole objective being to reduce volume (as
described earlier); the garbage grinder; drainage direct to sea, and to a lesser degree,
drainage direct to river (mainly concerning domestic sewage); and disposal on land.
57
Organisation europ
é
enne de coop
é
ration
é
conomique (
1953
).
58
Joulot, op. cit., p. 82
83.
-
59
Organisation europ
é
enne de coop
é
ration
é
conomique, op. cit., p. 101.
60
Joulot, op. cit., p. 175.
