Garbology

Around the year 1900, New York City was so dirty that sailors could smell it from 6 miles out at sea. Other American urban centers fared little better. Puente Hills represented the endpoint of the waste management techniques developed in the early 20th century. It was a success at handling massive volumes of waste but a failure in addressing the fundamental problem of where waste came from.

The modern landfill was developed by the corrupt Tammany Hall political machine that ran New York City in the late 1800s and early 1900s. At that point, trash was so prevalent across the country that even the White House was full of rats, roaches, and the smell of garbage.

A new mayor in New York City, eager to reform, wanted to hire someone to take on the garbage problem. The job was offered to Teddy Roosevelt, but he turned it down (believing that the job of police commissioner would be better for his political prospects). Instead, the job went to George E. Waring, a former Civil War colonel who had worked as a city engineer. Waring turned reforming the city’s sanitation into a personal crusade and made his workers call him “Colonel” and salute.

Waring’s first move was to hire an “army” of street cleaners (who wore matching white uniforms and marched together). Though some mocked Waring’s “White Wings” (as the cleaners were called), their distinctive look soon became iconic around the world. When Waring died, his New York Times obituary said that he had done more for the city’s sanitation than anyone before him. Waring set the blueprint for sanitation commissioners across the United States.

One of Waring’s big innovations was finding ways to remove usable materials from garbage, like skimming out tin to be melted and reused. Once the usable materials were removed, the trash was transported to landfills, which were unsanitary and full of rats (unlike the more modern Puente Hills) but still a massive improvement over the dirty streets of before.

One unusual consequence of Waring’s success is that it made people happier with politicians in New York City, allowing Tammany Hall to pick up more seats in the next election cycle. Waring was forced out by the new regime, but many of his successors built on his ideas. His ideas also influenced officials in other cities around the world, particularly Los Angeles, which in the early 20th century had a major smog problem.

Residents of Los Angeles had been encouraged to burn their trash at home, but the officials who recommended this disposal method didn’t realize how it contributed to pollution, particularly smog. It took until 1957 for home incinerators to be banned in the city. The new law led to even greater demand for space to dump trash. With the dawn of the 1960s and the “age of the plastic bag,” things would only get worse.