In England during the 1800's garbage was burned. During the early 1900's in the United States, garbage was placed in a dump or placed in the ocean, rivers or it was burned. During the middle of the 1900's, garbage was placed in sanitary landfills which are more environmentally-friendly.
Until then, Americans threw their trash wherever was most convenient. Broken dishes were tossed out the nearest door or window, while bones and other kitchen refuse were discarded in the yard where pigs, dogs, rodents, and other animals picked them over.
The rubbish collected was widely recycled: coal ash was useful to bricklayers and farmers; tins were melted down and formed into other metal objects; rags were made into paper; string was sent to mat-makers; bones to glue makers, and 'soft stuff' could be used as manure.
Landfill is the oldest and most common form of waste disposal, although the systematic burial of the waste with daily, intermediate and final covers only began in the 1940s. In the past, refuse was simply left in piles or thrown into pits; in archeology this is known as a midden.
People threw their refuse into the streets from where it transported to an open pit, often located within the community, by horse-pulled carts. Centuries with no organized waste collection followed. Land was plentiful and people were few, and so garbage was simply dumped in convenient places and forgotten.
The poor would normally use a bucket or stool, placed over a basin, which would then be emptied into a nearby river or stream, although many accounts of the period also detail this waste being dumped onto the street.
Before the invention of trash bags, American colonists buried their trash, burned it, or tossed it across the street — where hogs roamed freely and pungent garbage regularly overflowed. If you were a farmer, you'd probably feed your trash to your goats, pigs, chicks, or dogs.
Eugène Poubelle: The Inventor of the Trash Can.
Once a spot has been used as a landfill site and it fills up, it is covered over and compressed (again), and the area can be used for building. But it can't be opened up for landfill again.
The first known waste collectors were said to come from Britain in the 1350s, coinciding with the Black Plague and were called "rakers."
In wealthier homes, the toilet was often in a room by itself, in a corner, or an anteroom with a door. This was the ideal, still a water closet, and for many people, then and now, the only way to have a proper bathroom.
Before that, they used whatever was handy -- sticks, leaves, corn cobs, bits of cloth, their hands. Toilet paper more or less as we know it today is a product of Victorian times; it was first issued in boxes (the way facial tissue is today) and somewhat later on the familiar rolls.
Chamber pots did not always have to sit below a commode. For ease of use, Victorian women could simply hold the chamber pot in their hands, rest a foot on the top of the chair, and hold the chamber pot underneath the skirts.
It is thrown in the first place because its primary use was over. These can be converted into compost to be used again. This compost is used as manure in the agricultural fields.
But rumors that the U.S. is running out of landfill space are a myth, according to industry leaders. Just a few decades ago, almost every town had its own dump, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates there are more than 10,000 old municipal landfills.
Out of 258 million tons of solid waste produced in the United States each year, roughly one-third is recycled while the rest goes to landfills. Unfortunately, land is a non-renewable resource and the country's 2,000 landfills are running out of space.
The Life Expectancy of a Landfill
Given these considerations, the average life expectancy could be anywhere from 30 to 50 years. Type II landfills must be monitored for 30 years after closure.
3,000 B.C. | The first recorded landfill is developed in Knossos, Crete (modern-day Greece), where large holes were dug into the earth to dump refuse.
Germany. Germany is leading the way in waste management and recycling. With the introduction of their recycling scheme the country has been able to reduce their total waste by 1 million tons every year. Germany recycles 70% of all waste produced, this is the most in the world.
Landfills are the endpoint for municipal solid waste that is not recycled or burned. Landfills are specially engineered facilities designed to accept waste and protect the environment from contaminants.
They'd be placed in a paper bag or a container brought from home. Carrying it home. Fresh produce was often carried in woven string bags that could get dirty since the food wasn't washed prior to being sold. Other groceries would be placed in baskets, boxes or cloth bags for the trip home.
Plastic you put in the bin ends up in landfill. When rubbish is being transported to landfill, plastic is often blown away because it's so lightweight. From there, it can eventually clutter around drains and enter rivers and the sea this way.
So, why do people litter? Oftentimes, people litter simply because there isn't a trash can nearby. Rather than uncomfortably carry trash away with them, people decide it's easier to leave it behind, according to research done by the Allegheny Front.
Two baths in a lifetime, a stick for a toothbrush and mutton fat as soap. Hold your nose, this is going to get nasty. While people in medieval times weren't quite as filthy as we tend to think, they certainly weren't clean by today's standards.
Most medieval people probably were dirty, and perhaps even smelly, by our standards – however hard you try, it must be nearly impossible to make a cold, muddy river work as well as a power shower and a washing machine. But only a tiny number of medieval people were truly filthy. Even fewer actually wanted to be dirty.