Wednesday, June 6, 2007

The Household Garbage Consumer

1896

A Boston physician has invented a vice by which all kitchen garbage may be utilized as fuel. The material is put into a dryer through which the hot air from the range circulates until all the moisture is evaporated. The receptacle then contains a quantity of refuse that is highly inflammable and will make excellent kindling, or may be thrown upon the fire and speedily burns out.

This, of course, is practicable only where people burn coal fires. In wood-stoves the heat is not of the right quality unless the fire is kept up to a raging pitch. Where gas or electricity or oil is used for heating, this way of disposing of garbage is out of the question. There are, however, enough coal-stoves used in our large cities to make this a matter of very great importance. It would pay the Board of Health to furnish these garbage dryers to every family, and pass the most stringent laws compelling their use and proper care.

The most useful plan would be to use the garbage as a fertilizer for worn out lands, but this involves great cost and great danger. Decaying animal and vegetable matter must be carted through the streets, drippings fall upon the pavements, are dried and whirled by the wind into the nostrils of pedestrians.

Where it is possible, garbage should be consumed, and, by the way, a great deal of this is done when nothing is said about it. Many families put into the kitchen range everything of a waste character, and find great economy in fuel in consequence. — New York Ledger.

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