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Central Cont Bristol's Tra for art
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By A. E. Sherlock-Mesher Vehicles Allocated Daily to Municipal Departments : Accent on Salvage : Big Sales of Tottenham Puddings
BRISTOL wastes nothing. Maximum -economy is achieved by the concentration of municipal transport in the expert hands of the centralized transport and cleansing department under the control of Mr. H. M. Ellis, M.B.E., Finst.P.C. Ratepayers are assured of the utmost benefits from one of the most efficient refuse collection and disposal systems in the country. Salvage has been developed to a high pitch and valuable proceeds are yielded by the sale of waste paper and Tottenham puddings, as well as by the reclamation of waste land by controlled tipping.
The department is responsible for the complete public cleansing service within the city and county of Bristol. It collects refuse and disposes of it by controlled tipping and by separation and incineration. Collections cover the docks, including Avonmouth, eight miles from the city centre, as well as commercial and domestic premises. Street cleansing and washing, gritting and snow removal, and cesspit emptying (including industrial waste) are other activities.
Transport is provided for all corporation departments according to their daily requirements, and all vehicles other than those used by the police and fire brigade are maintained by the department. Mr. Ellis is responsible for the purchase of ambulances and some other vehicles which are not carried on the department's strength.
He controls a fleet of 311 vehicles, which are analyzed in the table on •the next page. Seventy-nine of them are vans, 94 general-purpose lorries, 63 refuse collectors, 29 miscellaneous vehicles and 46 are cars.
The refuse collectors are of five types. Sliding shutters for side loading are fitted to the Dennis and Karrier 7-cu.-yd, vehicles and to the Dennis, Karrier and S.D. 10-cu.-yd. models. Dennis Paxit and Paxit Major vehicles are loaded from the rear and have aluminium bodies. The S.D. bulk carrier with foreand-aft tipping gear is also loaded from the rear.
Kitchen waste is collected in Karrier 7-cu.-yd. vehicles with aluminium-lined side-loading bodies having sliding shutters. An unusual type of vehicle is used for salvaging waste paper. The Bedford chassis has a skeleton structure, made by the transport and cleansing department, of aluminium sections, with slatted sides, tapering sharply at the top to allow clearance for shop blinds when working on roads with steep cambers.
Among interesting miscellaneous vehicles is a Bedford fuel tanker used to deliver petrol, oil fuel and lubricating oils to mechanical plant on road and building work. The bodywork, designed by the department and built by the Eagle Engineering Co., Ltd., Warwick, consists of two independent circular tanks, one of 175-gal. and the other of 300-gal. capacity, and two 30-gal. rectangular tanks on each side. There are six separate delivery valves at the rear.
Bristol's two tower wagons have power-operated 40-ft. towers and workshop cabs, again designed by the department and built by Eagle. The department's own bodyshops were responsible for a general-utility police ambulance, rescue and civil defence van used by the Port of Bristol Authority. The cab accommodates four attendants, as well as the driver, and there are facilities for carrying civil-defence equipment. Public-address apparatus is installed.
Mobile Buffet Another " indigenous" body is that of a mobile buffet mounted on a semi-trailer chassis and stationed in the gorge beneath Clifton Suspension Bridge, where it does a busy trade. It has central sliding doors with a longitudinal counter, and is equipped for inside and outside service.
Drop-sided bodies with detachable slatted side extensions and additional floor slats for carrying kitchen-waste concentrate were built by the department on three Bedford, Dennis and Morris general-purpose 5-ton and 7-ton lorry chassis.
This varied fleet works in a geographically difficult area of 26,345 acres with a population of 442,500. The city is extremely hilly and is bisected by a river, and has many bridges on which heavy traffic converges. Indeed, traffic congestion is as severe in Bristol as in any town or city I know and, combined with the steep hills, causes much low-gear work. As an accompanying table shows, the fuel-consumption rates of the refuse collectors are heavy, ranging from 4.4 m.p.g. for the Dennis Paxit 4-tonner to 9 m.p.g. for the S.D. bulk loader, for which conditions are more favourable.
Another problem is created in refuse collection by the need for continual reorganization brought about by the development of housing estates and the demolition of condemned properties in the city centre and slumclearance areas. Nevertheless, a weekly service of collection is provided for 142,200 houses and shops. Additional collections can he made from business premises, but a charge is imposed. Concentrating on certain areas each day, the refuse collectors work on 230 rounds averaging three miles each. A 3-tonner carries a driver with three loaders and a 2-tonner has two loaders.
The vehicles cover 374,429 miles a year and collect 147,848 tons of refuse at a cost of 16s. 6d. per ton. About three-quarters of the collections are made from the front gate and the remainder from site. The average distance to the disposal point is 31 miles.
Controlled tipping at four major sites for domestic refuse and two for trade refuse and rubble is responsible for the annual disposal of 130,561 tons of refuse at a cost of 3s. 5d. per ton, whilst 19.702 tons go to the disposal works, where the cost of destruction is 2s. 4d. per ton. The overall cost of disposal is 55. 11d, per ton. A lower ash content causes the tonnage collected in summer to be reduced by about 15 per cent.
Kitchen Waste Collected
Under the highly developed system of collecting kitchen waste, householders are provided with neat polished pails having closely fitting hinged lids, which are placed at the gate and are collected twice a week. The 2-ton vehicles employed are manned by a driver and two loaders, who work each day on 54 rounds averaging 11 miles each.
The weight collected varies with the season, according to the rotation of vegetables, but the annual tonnage is 14,301 at a cost of £3 17s. lid, a ton, or, excluding the cost of pails, £3 12s. 6d. These figures do not take account of the revenue from the sale of kitchen-waste concentrate. The annual mileage covered in collecting kitchen waste is 156,326.
Waste-paper collection is another specialized weekly operation on which vehicles cover 100,274 miles a year, working each day on 75 rounds averaging 9 miles each. Vehicles of 30-cwt. capacity are employed, and the drivers are assisted by two loaders, who collect the sacks of paper from the householder's front entrance and replace them by empty sacks. There is again a seasonal variation in weight, with a peak around Christmas, but the annual tonnage is 9,881 at a cost of £2 13s. 2d, a ton.
Waste paper is compressed in special boxes and baled. At the central transport and cleansing depot in Albert Road I watched an old hay baler driven by a Fordson tractor wiring consignments of waste card and paper.
The total cost per ton of collecting each year 172,030 tons of waste of all kinds is £1 3s. 9d., or £1 3s. 3d. if the cost of pails is excluded. The total cost of collection and disposal is 14s. a ton.
Street sweeping is done partly manually, using lightalloy orderly trucks built in the department and having two easily detachable skips suspended from a framework. This force is supplemented by mechanical sweeping.
One sweeper is allocated to each cleansing area and each route is swept twice a week. In this way 23,864 miles of street are swept at a cost of 9s. 7d. a mile. The petrol-engined sweeper-collector averages 4,673 miles a year and 4.8 m.p.g. of fuel, whereas the oil-engined models cover 34,528 miles a year at 10.8 m.p.g. Parked cars in the central area of the city make it increasingly difficult to carry out mechanical sweeping between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m.
Gully-emptying on Continuous Beat
Gully-emptying and flushing is organized on the continuous-beat system. One mechanical gully-emptier is allocated to each cleansing area, there being a total of seven beats. Altogether 24,750 gullies are cleansed. Those in the suburbs are dealt with four times a year, and those in the commercial and industrial areas six times a year. During heavy thunderstorms and the leafing seasons particular attention has to be paid to gullies situated at the bottom of Bristol's many steep hills.
the eight gully-emptiers average 41,077 miles a year, with a fuel-consumption rate of 4.58 m.p.g. The cost of cleansing per gully is 2s. 8-kl. The solitary cesspitemptier covers 1,679 miles a year and averages 5.8 m.p.g. The central depot at Albert Road houses a complete range of workshops. Vehicles other than cars and vans are lubricated and inspected fortnightly by a night staff. Cars and vans are greased and inspected every 3,000 miles.
Minor defects are reported daily and are rectified during the night. In addition, there is a comprehensive system of preventive maintenance divided into the following three phases:— Service A (3,000-mile intervals): Drain and replenish sump and check gearbox and rear-axle oil levels. Clean sparking plugs and set gaps. Adjust tappets and check compression. Check front-axle beam and stub axles. Check and grease hubs and bearings with hand gun. Check springs and tighten U-bolts. Check steering and grease joints. Examine and inflate tyres. Tighten bolts on universal joints, check rear-axle casing and drive. Examine chassis frame. Adjust brakes. Adjust distributor points, check dynamo, top-up battery and test lights. Grease and spray chassis. Oil door hinges. Tighten wheel nuts. Top-up shock absorbers.
Service B (6,000-mile intervals): As A. plus: clean fuel system. Tighten engine mountings. Adjust clutch travel and report on condition of thrust. Tighten chassis-frame nuts and bolts.
Service C (9,000-mile intervals): As A and B. plus: overhaul distributor. Decarbonize engine and grind valves. Wash out radiator. Clean or renew filters. Check stub-axle play and adjust and repack bearings with grease. Adjust track rod and drag link (renew if necessary). Check wheel alignment. Reface brakes if necessary. Check dynamo, brush and charging rate, test battery and overhaul lighting. Adjust doors, grease seat runners and polish vehicle
All vehicles other than cars or vans are withdrawn For at least a week in every 12-month period and are completely overhauled. They are then expected to operate for another year free from major breakdowns. Body repairs are made during the mechanical overhaul period.
The mechanical workshop is staffed by 10 fitters. Immediately to the left of the entrance is a greasing and washing bay, beyond which are seven pits with overhead lifting gear. Close at hand are a store for specialized tools, an electrician's shop, a battery-charging shop anti a tyre-repair bay. The life of a tyre is estimated at an average of 26,000 miles. Half the department's expenditure on tyres is on retreads.
The engine shop, where every kind of work other than crankshaft grinding can be performed, is housed in a separate building. Here, spare parts are reclaimed. Cylinders are not bored out to more than 30 "thou."
When this stage is reached, chrome-steel liners are fitted.
There are also a fully equipped sheet-metal shop, a coach trimmer's shop and a body shop divided into two sections, one furnished with woodworking machinery and the other undertaking general repairs and complete bodybuilding.
In the paint shop both the brush and spray processes are used. The general-purpose vehicles are painted by brush, and the ambulances, cars and other specialized types are sprayed. In some instances the foundation is laid by spraying, and a final brush coat of paint is applied, followed by varnish. The department has constructed its own infra-red heating panel for quick drying.
Not all the vehicles are based on Albert Road. Forty, for instance, are garaged at a depot at Seamills, in a residential district. This depot is unobtrusively tucked away in a fold in the contour of the ground, but is spacious and has facilities for service, running repairs and normal overhauls by the exchange-unit system. It is staffed by a fitter and mate.
Bristol's methods are studied with interest and profit by other municipalities all over the country. At the time of my visit Mr. Ellis was being consulted by an officer from a large Metropolitan borough. Bristolians are sometimes twitted for their strong civic pride, but in the case of the cleansing and transport department it has sound foundations.