This seemingly repulsive story is nothing of the sort but rather a mine of very interesting information.
Its historical coverage of the problem of sewerage and waste disposal is both wide ranging and comprehensive—how early humans spread waste to fertilize crops to Ancient Rome's obsession with cleanliness and its sewer infrastructure through to Dr John Snow, cholera and the shutting off of the Broad St pump and London's Great Sink of 1858 and Joseph Bazalgette's great sewer infrastructure.
The article concludes with modern sewer treatments and sewerage as a resource—the gathering of disease/medical information and the recovering of valuable materials therefrom.
This article is both very well researched and presented and it's well worth the read—or one can listen to the audio stream.
This seemingly repulsive story is nothing of the sort but rather a mine of very interesting information.
Its historical coverage of the problem of sewerage and waste disposal is both wide ranging and comprehensive—how early humans spread waste to fertilize crops to Ancient Rome's obsession with cleanliness and its sewer infrastructure through to Dr John Snow, cholera and the shutting off of the Broad St pump and London's Great Sink of 1858 and Joseph Bazalgette's great sewer infrastructure.
The article concludes with modern sewer treatments and sewerage as a resource—the gathering of disease/medical information and the recovering of valuable materials therefrom.
This article is both very well researched and presented and it's well worth the read—or one can listen to the audio stream.
Highly recommended.
Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45039661