Riverside and Seaside Cleansing Comparisons
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HEIST operating methods differ between the two towns to accord with contrasting local conditions. many features are common to the municipal fleets of Margate and Battersea. The most obvious is that Margate uses S.D. and Battersea Dennis refuse collectors, both the products of specialist manufacturers, whilst for ,general haulage work, vehicles of popular type are employed—Austin by Margate and Bedford by Battersea. Appliances of other makes do, however. form part of the fleets, but it is upon the models named that the two operators have largely standardized.
Margate claims the longest sea front of any town in Britain—nine miles in extent—and the boundary runs roughly parallel with the coast 11 ,miles inland. The land .covers 6,960 acres and the foreshore 963 acres. The shape of Battersea resembles a .blurited,arrowhead tying in a three-mile-long right-hand. bend. of the
Thames. The territory covers 2,140 acres. .
Margate has ,a. resident population of 42,000, but the number of .summer Visitors may be double• this figure, sufficient, in fact; to swell the populace of the resort to the npmber. of people permanently, living in. Battersea .(115,400). : Although less than a 'third :the size of
B16 Margate, Battersea has 73 miles of .street, only 15 fe than the seaside town. The rateable value of London -borough, at over Lim., is almost double thai Margate, and the tonnage of refuse collected in eacf the two towns is curiously in the -same ratio, 26,43 year for Battersea and some 13,000-for Margate.
It would not, of course, be .eorrect to. postulate 1 the amount of refuse to be colfeeted in a town function of rateable value. For one thing, Margatalmost entirely residential, whilst property of this l< makes up only 64 per cent. of Battersea, which 22 per cent. trading and 4 per cent. industrial premi Furthermore, Margate's residential property may reckoned commercial in character.
,Again, tonnage gives no clue to the actual bulk of refuse collected throughout the year. In Margate, the tonnage in December, 1952, of 1,118 represented 516 vehicle-loads, but the tonnage in August, 1952, only a little higher at 1,355, involved 852 loads. The winter tonnage was largely accounted for by fire ash, whereas the summer figure was constituted mainly of holidaymakers' litter and millions of empty food cans and cartons thrown out by caterers.
On this subject, Mr. W. J. Huitt, M.Sc.(Eng.)(Lond.), A.M.I.C.E., Battersea deputy engineer, told me that during the past few years, household refuse had tended to decrease in weight but increase in bulk. Some causes were the growing popularity of continuous-burning fires, which reduced the weight of cinder, the rising cost of coal and coke, restricting the quantity purchased, and the increasing use of packages and containers for food and other commodities. As a consequence, there was a trend towards the greater use of large-capacity vehicles.
Expanding this point, Mr. Huitt stressed that mechanical simplicity had been a main guide in vehicle selection, and in saying this he underlined a similar statement previously made to me by Mr. W. L. Armstrong, B.Sc., A.M.I.C.E., Margate borough engineer. Both municipalities have, indeed, abandoned their former types of moving-floor refuse collector, the mechanical gear of which they found susceptible to failure through the penetration of dust.
Barrier Loaders Battersea has four moving-floor collectors, but they are kept as reserves. Barrier-loading equipment, introduced by the borough engineer, Mr. H. Atkinson, A.M.I.C.E., M.Inst.Mun.E., after the war, has, however, proved satisfactory and the 14 Dennis 12-cu.-yd. vehicles used regularly all incorporate it. The borough has also three Scammell mechanical-horse tractors which operate in conjunction with semi-trailers, each of which can carry six li-cu.-yd. bins.
Of the eight S.D. refuse collectors employed in Margate, four have been converted from moving-floor models to four-bay side-loaders. Three of the others are some 23 years old. At the beginning of the war they were lying on a scrap heap, and as it was foreseen that new vehicles might be difficult to obtain, they were salvaged and completely rebuilt. Although it was intended to run them for only three years, they are still in service.
Methods of collection in the two towns compare, in spite of a special difficulty in Battersea. Margate is divided into five areas, each of which is normally served by one vehicle. In summer, another two vehicles supplement the service. One collector is always kept in reserve and the lesser bulk of winter refuse allows two vehicles to be placed aside for overhaul.
Battersea is broken into two parts by 21 miles of railway track which runs from the north-east through Clapham Junction in the south-west. For nearly a mile of the track there is no road crossing, so that vehicular communication from One side to another is often circuitous.
To cut down waste mileage, Battersea allocates a refuse collector to each of 14 zones into which the town has been divided. The vehicles work solely within these zones, which are sub-divided into daily collection rounds. The Scammells are not confined to one zone, but serve flats anywhere in the borough. Similarly, another vehicle is used to collect extra quantities of refuse from schools, hospitals, trade and other premises requiring service more frequently than once weekly. Refuse from a18 street markets is cleared by a Dennis 10-cu.-yd. side loader which works from noon until 9 p.m. and supplemented by another vehicle at weekends.
A crew of four loaders and a driver-loader accompanies each Battersea refuse collector; crews of sitnilai size are employed in two of the Margate areas, five loaders and a driver-loader -being required in the othei three. Nearly all Battersea householders place their dustbins near their gates for the loaders to handle, but in Margate collections have nearly always to be made frorr the rear of premises. The 'men are therefore provide( with Braby aluminium skips into which to empty the householders' bins, so that they need walk in and oui only once at each call. Similar skips are used it • Battersea, where pick-up points are remote from tht street.
Large hotels, bakeries and institutions in Margate are called upon twice weekly during the summer, and dail3 collections are made from fishIshops in the morning tc pick up offal for farm manure.
Margate's method of disposal is incineration. Controlled tipping is impossible because of the higl-. agricultural value of the land, and there are no available disused quarries or swamps. The electric plant, behin( the town, can deal with 120 tons of rubbish a day an( the burnt waste is dumped on a site next to the building Waste paper is collected for salvage, as it has beer since 1936, the refuse vehicles towing small trailers for this purpose. Kitchen waste is collected from bins ir the streets directly by pig farmers. Margate earns abou. £6,000 a year from salvage.
Battersea operates a separate fleet of six Brush Pon3 16-cwt. tippers for the recovery of kitchen waste an( waste paper, the revenue from which—over £10,000 z year—represents a good return on the money spent or operating the vehicles. One Pony is held in reserve while each of the others operates in its own collectior zone, each containing some 3,000 householders. The householders are provided with bins and place them oh: for collection twice a week. Each vehicle covers aboui 70 miles a week and brings in 8 tons of kitchen waste and 17+cwt. of waste paper.
Collection Depot At the collection depot at Lombard Wharf, merchants vehicles call to take away the baled paper salvage, an lorries from Reigate Corporation, the pig food. Thi: scheme has been running for four years and is appliee mainly to houses because of difficulties entailed in collec tions from flats. Three Thames and Bedford lorries an used to collect salvage from trade premises, canteen; and so on.
Lombard Wharf is sometimes used when the rive tide permits the refuse collectors to dispose of thei loads into contractors' barges. The vessels take th, rubbish to a controlled tip at Tilbury. Usually, however Falcon Wharf is used. This is the site of the transpor garage and workshops.
In highway cleansing, Margate claims to hay achieved an efficient standard of hygiene combined witl an extremely low cost per mile of road. Eleven orderlie are allotted to this work in the winter, but 17 ar required in the summer. Most of the men use barrow: but two gangs of three work with Harbilt batter3 electrics.
The length of street dealt with by each orderly differ according to district; roads in the busiest parts of. th town are swept two or three times a day, but those i quieter residential areas only once a week. Orderlie
take their trucks to collection points from which the loads are taken away by Austin tippers.
, A Thomycroft-Levein sprinkler-sweeper is employed to clean rural roads, also to serve every street in the borough once a week. During the summer, this vehicle sweeps the shopping-centre roads early every morning. Litter left on the foreshore by visitors, which may amount to 21 tons a day, is collected by orderlies who start at 6.30 a.m. instead of the normal 7.30 a.m. The men collect the refuse in sacks and unload them into an Austin which is driven down on to the sand, drivers being warned about the soft parts.
Rubbish left by visitors to the Festival Pleasure Gardens at Battersea is cleared by contractors and collected every morning by a lorry. At the height of the season, however, two vehicles may have to be sent for it.
Lorries are occasionally taken down to the beach at Margate to collect seaweed. It is delivered as manure to farmers.
In Battersea, 82 street orderlies have set daily beats and sweepings are collected at pre-arranged points by Bedford 4-tonners with Eagle side-loading refuse bodies.
Street Appliances The orderlies' work is supplemented by the operations of a Lacre and a Scarnmell sweeper-collector, which sweep the main streets early each morning. These machines and two Dennis gully-emptiers are equipped for streeksprinkling.
Possibly because Margate's Thornycroft-Lewin is operated more intensively than Battersea's sweepers, brushes last only about four days in the seaside town, whereas those of the London vehicles last about two weeks. Another reason for this discrepancy is that granite chips and calcined flint are widely used in Margate for surface dressing.
Highway maintenance in Battersea calls for one Thames and seven Bedford lorries, whilst another six Bedfords are allocated to building works. Most of these vehicles are short-wheelbase tippers. Civilengineering work in Margate is at present proceeding urgently as the result of the effects of the February floods.
Vehicles were hired from contractors to augment the works department's 10 Austin lorries to clear the debris, a task which was accomplished in 14 days. One of the Harbilt battery-electrics was submerged in the flood and had to be reconditioned before being returned to service. The works department also has three Austin light general-purpose vehicles.
Some of the Austins 'perform work other than that z..onnected with building and more in the nature of that to be expected in a holiday town. During the summer, I few are used to take deck chairs to the beach in the morning, where they are distributed by two Opperman Motocarts and trailers, and collect them in the late evening. The council run 50 refreshment stalls and cafes, most of which are on the front or the beach, and they are supplied by a Morris Cowley, a MorrisCommercial J type, and five Austin vans from 10 cwt.2 tons capacity.
As many of the cafes and stalls were flooded in the storm, the council have built two mobile trailer canteens partly to replaee them. Catering is not .a municipal activity in Battersea, although the council there do look after two Thames vans used by the Women's Voluntary Service for their "Meals on Wheels" facility.
An Austin 2-tonner and an 8 h.p. van are employed at Margate for carrying scenery and other properties for shows in council-owned theatres, also decorative street a2e lighting equipment. There is also a Morris-Commercial J-type van for collecting takings from municipal trading points, and delivering the weekly wages to men employed in places some distance from council offices. The parks department run three Austin and Bedford vehicles.
Battersea employs two Morrison-Electricar 20-cwt. vans for the collection of clothing for disinfecting, whilst a Thames 10-cwt. model is put to a similar purpose in Margate. The seaside town has also a Thames 5-ton A.R.P. rescue vehicle.
A responsibility of Margate which does not apply to Battersea is the upkeep of waterworks. An Austin and a Karrier 2-tonner and two Austin light vans are used for the installation and repair of mains.
Both towns take particular care to maintain their vehicles in first-class condition and appearance. In addition to the vehicles mentioned, they operate a large number of appliances, such as road rollers, concrete mixers and compressors, and the ranges of service equipment provided in their workshops cover all repair operations except precision machining.
One vehicle is brought in at Margate each day for examination and running service, and major overhauls are done when found necessary by this system of inspection rather than at specified mileage intervals. Battersea vehicles, in addition to regular weekly and five-weekly servicing, are docked for decarbonizing annually. New piston rings are fitted every two years and engines are thoroughly overhauled every four years.
Battersea vehicles use Energol lubricants. Until recently, Margate employed several different brands, but now standardizes on Mobiloil. Mr. A. S. Little, plant superintendent, claims that a 15-per-cent. reduction in maintenance costs has come as a result: He finds it well worth while to keep individual tyre-cost records and to use manufacturers' retreads. No preference is shown for any particular make of tyre, but Dunlop Roadtrak Major equipment is fitted to those vehicles which have to operate on the sand.
Combating Wheelspin Some tyre difficulty was experienced with the Brush Ponies by Battersea, the cabs of which were, incidentally, built in the council workshops. The tyre on the front wheel gave only six months' wear, but Wyresoles' retreads, which have now been adopted, are less prone to spin than normal covers and last over twice as long.
Strict attention to costing is paid by the two boroughs. Figures for the year ended March 31, 1953, reveal that six of Margate's Austin 2-tonners, which averaged 9 m.p.g. and covered an aggregate of 54,000 miles, cost £4,750 to run. A charge of 8s. 9d. per hour is made for the hire of a vehicle of this type by the county, or for internal accountancy purposes.
The running costs of the eight S.D. refuse collectors totalled £5,316. They covered 34,000 miles and averaged 4.5 m.p.g. of fuel. Their oil consumption was 250 m.p.g. An Austin 5-tonner returns 800 m.p.g. for oil, but no direct comparison in performance is, of course, apposite. The hourly hire charge for this vehicle is 10s., that for an S.D. 10s. 4d.. the Lewin sweeper 20s. 6d., and an Austin 25-cwt. lorry 8s. 3d.
Battersea's refuse collectors each cover 2,800 miles a year and the Brush Ponies 3,500. Mileages of other vehicles vary widely. In the past financial year the total. operating costs of the 22 refuse collectors came to £17,702, of the six Pony and three petrol salvage vehicles to £5,577, of the 12 works vehicles to £10,460, and of four street-cleansing appliances to £4,074.