History of Recycling
1 - 1900
220
The first recorded dustmen are the Romans. Teams of two walk down the street grab rubbish and put it in a wagon.
1297
Things were going downhill in Britain , it was getting really grubby. The head honcho at the time made a law saying that the front of everyone's house should be rubbish-free. Everyone ignored him. He may have cried, historians aren't sure.
1354
In London the rubbish was so bad that they employed people to rake it up like leaves once a week. It was all organic too, like rotting food, (and back then everything was green, even the meat), so it was used for compost. Yay!
1407
Laws were written down and nailed up all over London saying that rubbish had to be kept indoors until those Raking blokes from 1354 could come along and take it to be dumped in the Essex marshes. Unfortunately no-one could read so it didn’t have much effect.
1700s and 1800s
Oops. Being very clever we invented the Industrial Revolution. Starting in the 18th century, we began inventing loads of ways to make loads of things quickly and were very impressed with ourselves for being so modern. It also made much, much more waste. This is where today’s problems began.
1820
Thomas Hancock came up with a machine to grind up and recycle scraps of rubber.
1848
In Britain the, very exciting, Public Health Act 1848 begins the process of waste regulation. Okay, it was pretty boring, but it did mean that people couldn’t just chuck rubbish anywhere.
1875
The Public Health Act 1875. Not exciting sounding these public health acts, are they? Good though; this one said that the council had to come take the rubbish away.
1885
The first recycling centre is established in New York.
1890
The British Paper Company is created to make paper and board from recycled materials. Waste paper is obtained from organisations such as the Salvation Army and rag-and-bone men.
The late 1800s
Household waste is collected daily in moveable ash bins. The waste is sorted by hand, usually by women or girls, and the re-usable stuff is plucked out. Loads of it gets reused, the glass, the paper, even the bits of grit and stuff gets put into building materials.
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