Old technology can solve a modern crisis
Your report on electric bin lorries powered by energy from household waste (5 September) that are being trialled by Sheffield and Westminster councils suggests that this may be a world first for local authorities.
This may well be the case in the 21st century, but Sheffield also claimed to be the first to do this back in 1915. Electric refuse collection vehicles were not uncommon in the early decades of the 20th century, and one manufacturer claimed to have 50 local authority customers for its vehicles.
In the mid-1920s, 7% of London refuse vehicles were electric, when ones with petrol engines made up only 11% of the total (80% were still horsedrawn).
Modern energy-from-waste plants now provide electricity generated from household refuse, but this approach had also been pioneered more than a century ago with the so-called “dust destructors” that were installed in a number of London boroughs, as well as many provincial authorities.
Recycling isn’t new either – there’s nothing new in the world of rubbish.Dr Peter HounsellGreenford, London
• In the early 20th century a number of British councils burned rubbish to generate electricity, in facilities quaintly called “refuse destructors”.
Some of the electricity produced went to power council-owned trams and some was typically used to charge up the fleets of electric dustcarts that fed the destructors.
In some places the practice continued after the second world war: Birmingham ran a considerable fleet of electric dustcarts into the 1950s. At least one of these survives in the collections of Birmingham museum.
I wonder what other forgotten technologies could also help with the climate emergency?Richard EllamPaulton, Somerset
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