Garbage and trash disposal

[Lothia]

Ave Civitas,

I just saw the thread "What a Load of Rubbish!"
It made me wonder, if Pompei did not have a trash, rubbish collection method, was that city likely over run with vermin?

I would think it would be.
What did other cities do? How did Constantinopolis or Rome deal with the tons of trash they generated?

I just can't see Molly limping down four flights of stairs and walking to the dumpster every morning.
I know there were ordinances against throwing trash into the streets in some cities (though I can't name which city that applied to). But what is a fellow to do with the old tuna cans in the morning?

Thanks.
Tom

[Epictetus]

Perhaps, but I'm interested in reading Emmerson's work to see what, exactly, this rubbish consisted of and its quantities. I've seen some foodstuffs mentioned - olive pits, animal bones, grape seeds - but I would strongly suspect that an average Roman threw away a miniscule fraction of the food we throw away in modern times. Huge swaths of the population was one bad harvest away from starvation, and we constantly hear about food shortages in big cities. I doubt if they threw away enough food to make giant populations of rodents possible.

[Vindex]

Other people's rubbish is fascinating, isn't it! I can't walk past a skip/dumpster without hovering and having a look...just in case!

And thereby , perhaps, is a partial solution to your interesting question. Where there's muck there's brass, they say, and I am sure there was a healthy "re-cycling" system of rubbish tips being picked over and gems removed by others. (It still happens today)

And there wasn't the packaging issue we have these days!

Pigs are also fabulous waste disposal units, although possibly difficult for tennents in tenenment blocks in Rome to keep them; but pigs can eat most things and are a very good way of disposing of human remains too, bone and all.

An assumption must be that butchered carcasses were removed at source (ie by the butcher)but it does make you wonder what happened to all the sacrificial animals in an urban environment.

As for vermin; where's there's a large population there's also a large feral cat population...scavanging dogs...which bring their own special waste problems!

So, having unleashed an active imagination there is one thing I am sure we can guarantee; the streets were not particularly pleasant to walk in (in sandals too? yuk!)and the smell - particularly in summer - must have been appalling.

I could list several shanty town environments across the world for comparison but I find that far too depressing as I sit at my computer in my "advanced" Western home with the waste disposal lorry due at my door tomorrow at 7am...

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Vindex the closet bag-lady, whooda figured!! :lol:

Well I think even in the towns of Asia I remember from my childhood with the open gutters
could be unpleasant at times, but the flow of water helped a lot.

And were sacrificed animals not then consumed as food afterwards?
I think they read the entrails and the blood spatter, then it was chow time?

A few reference books mention the smells and the problems, if I could find them again.
Not sure about sources though!
Interesting topic.

[Vindex]

Shhhhhh...don't tell everyone.

Yes, the sources are a bit thin but then again I am sure someone on RAT will have just what we're looking for. Frontinus' work on the aqueaducts includes sanitation in Rome I believe but I haven't read it (to my shame!!)

Edit: here's a rather good web site for sources :wink: (Lacus Curtius)

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Ro.../home.html

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

I find it easier to count the books I have read as opposed to the number I haven't! :grin:
I only have so many fingers... :mrgreen:

[Vindex]

[Lothia]

Ave,

I always assumed that there was less to discard from an earlier, less prosperous society than in the West, but I too have been in third-world countries and have seen their streets (mostly still dirt) and smelled the open sewers (fell in one once too, -- phew!).

Granted, they did not have plastic shopping bags caught in the branches of their trees, but there was some trash.

Also, the third-world population centers I was in were always small (population-wise) and so didn't have a lot of trash to dispose of. But when people are stacked up, three or four stories high, the density of humanity is greater.

However, the image of cats and dogs roaming the streets was something I had not thought of. As a writer, I can see where that would add depth to a scene (ankle deep maybe). I will have to think on this for a while.

Thanks for all the replies. You guys are great.
Tom

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Hello Tom!

Yes , it;s something used in almost every novel I've read with Rome as a setting!
It is a good visual!

[Ruvix]

Presumably each township would have had its own arrangements? We might imagine that people threw buckets of excrement and urine out of their windows as portrayed by Hollywood depicting life in the later Elizabethan era? However I seriously that happened as frequently as we might suppose.

After all urine was used to dye clothing certainly from the Roman era and up to the 17th Century with the exception of the colour Black which was an expensive colour created from dyes and largely absent from everyday attire for all but the very rich from the 14th to the late 17th Centuries

Looking at how the Romans utilised foodstuffs seemingly indicates that they did not waste very much though of course feel free to correct me if you have an alternative opinion. I do have a reference but it can wait until tomorrow cos it's time to hit the pit...excrement free I might add.

[Vindex]

And were sacrificed animals not then consumed as food afterwards?
I think they read the entrails and the blood spatter, then it was chow time?

Oops, just seen this - that'll teach me to scan read.

Agreed, the flesh was consumed, but what about the bones?? And some bones would be "harvested" for re-use in the artefacts we find today - hair pins, implements like small spoons (been a recent find of a beautiful one in Dorchester, Dorset, UK)...dice even; so there's a thought too! But it would hardly remove vast quatities of waste.

[Ruvix]

I do accept that there was extremely likely to have been animal dung in the streets which doubtlessly stayed there until it was spread by other traffic. But I'm not so sure about the following quote And of course Romans used sponges-on-sticks as toilet paper. taken from http://flavias.blogspot.com/2010/11/roman-poo-pee.html

Assuming that these sponges were not dry why use a sponge when you can use your fingers and a bit o' wet cloth or a slaves fingers for that matter? Or have I missed the irony in her claim?

She also claims that dead animals would have lain in the streets presumably left to rot rather than eaten? Don't buy into that one unless poverty had been erased?

[Epictetus]

I think she might be talking about a misconception she had.

I thought [emphasis mine] everybody wore nice clean tunics and no rubbish marred the streets. And of course Romans used sponges-on-sticks as toilet paper.

That was an interesting post. Thanks!

I've been glancing through some literature to see what I could find.

What refuse or what garbage have you trod on in the streets at night?

Petronius, Satyricon

This sounds like trash in the streets was fairly common. But this is interesting:

And therewithall I embraced my friend Socrates and kissed him: but he smelling the stink of the piss wherewith those hags had embrued me, thrust me away and said, Cleanse thy self from this filthy odour...

Apuleius, Golden Ass

This sounds like the smell of urine was not appreciated, and, presumably, not common.

[Ruvix]

Agreed, the flesh was consumed, but what about the bones?? And some bones would be "harvested" for re-use in the artefacts we find today - hair pins, implements like small spoons (been a recent find of a beautiful one in Dorchester, Dorset, UK)...dice even; so there's a thought too! But it would hardly remove vast quatities of waste.

Well animal jaw bones and teeth are fairly common on most sites perhaps indicative of having had something head soup and as these bones do not contain marrow perhaps that is why they were more readily discarded? Otherwise once the marrow had been extracted the remaining softer bones could have been ground down into a paste to be eaten. Not forgetting of course that dogs do additionally enjoy gnawing at bones cooked or uncooked.

The biggest problem with deduction and assumption is the apparent need to then justify the reasoning they ate bone marrow because it is nutritional rather than they ate bone marrow because they could. Tis rather odd that people who knew next to nothing about hygiene are apparently expert at the inclusion of bone marrow in ones diet.

http://web.onetel.com/~hibou/Apicius.html This reference does mention a few Roman delights such as boiled brains and the link mentioned roasted marrow though my speed reading technique missed it, just like I missed the bit about sponges, perhaps I'm a bit rusty?

[Martin Moser]

A bit wider than the topic of this thread, but an interesting read in this direction (in German) is

Karl-Wilhelm Weeber: Smog über Attika. Umweltverhalten im Altertum. 1994. (Smog over Attica - Environmental behaviour/consciousness in antiquity)