Regulating the Rag and Bone Man (2017)
blogs.loc.gov
blogs.loc.gov
I've given him a few things, like an old copper tank which was probably worth a few bob. He would have given me some money but I let him have it for free just to get it off my property. As in the article we'd have to be careful about fly-tipping, but giving him items with an obvious value that can be sold on seems safe.
Is that a genuine concern? Collecting your bones and rags don’t seem any worse than simply having a compost heap.
Sounds a lot to me like a made up excuse to get inelegant people out of your neighborhood.
Seems likely too that the collection of rags and bones (for their various uses) became more systematic, with rags and bones as side-products of industrialised processes, and therefore collecting a few rags and bones from individuals was no longer economically worthwhile. There are also other ways to make money now, that are more profitable to the individual than collecting bones worth a few pence per bag.
I suspect too that the rise of plastics mean that we have fewer day-to-day uses for bones, as handles for things, ornaments, etc. This leaves only the larger scale industrial uses, that get bone from other industrial food production processes.
The article mentions that Rag & Bone men moved to items that were still valuable e.g. scrap metal. They weren't chased out of neighborhoods.
A big part of every compost heap my family has ever kept has been the post meal plate scraps that are assuredly cooked. Probably close to 50% by volume. I am reasonably certain this is usually the case.
I'm sure it varies a lot by geography and culture and I'd be loathe to say there's a general "norm" that would apply to the mileus of most readers here.
This practice of municipal organic waste connection actually dates back centuries. Anthony van Leeuwenhoek, the father of the microscope, worked his day job in gathering organic waste in the locality, and some of his early experiments were based on inspecting this waste via magnification.
I understand that the trustworthiness of public governance varies from place to place but I can't imagine why a city would spend time and money on a project like this just to throw everything in a landfill.
It makes sense to be critical but there's a certain level of distrust that I wouldn't be personally able to tolerate and still feel happy living here.
The reason they don't always want food waste is that it attracts animals that eat food waste (crows, seagulls, raccoons, possums, cockroaches, flies, etc.) and the composting is often done in open-air windrow heaps. Composting also works most efficiently when the ratio of carbon and nitrogen is in balance, and food waste is somewhat different than yard waste. It makes it harder to manage to get good compost quickly.
> If it grows, it goes! We can accept all food scraps regardless if they are pre or post consumer, cooked, uncooked, spoiled, rotten, or moldy.
> Accepted items include fruits, vegetables, coffee grounds/ filters and tea bags, bread and grain products, dairy products, meat and bones, chemical-free paper towel and napkins, and certified compostable products.
> Fruit and vegetables, Meat and bones, Bread, Eggshells, All food waste including plate scrapings and uneaten food, Napkins, Paper plates, Compostable cups and cutlery (Greensafe, Ingeo), Coffee grounds with filter
> Food scraps (including meat), coffee grounds and filters, compostable ware (such as takeout containers and utensils), napkins, and paper towels are all compostable on campus.
Most 'modern' venues and food courts (universities, airports, malls, stadiums, etc - not restaurants and houses) will have three adjacent bins: Black Landfill, Blue Recycling, and Green Biodegradeable.
Probably 20% of homes in my neighborhood pay the extra $30/quarter to get an additional 96-gallon (~1.1m x 0.8m x 0.8m) curbside cart for recycling, and maybe 5% have a yard waste and food scraps 'biodegradeable' cart (1% or less have backyard gardens and might do their own composting).
[1] https://www.mygreenmi.com/program-education/
[2] https://midtowncomposting.com/product/weekly-residential-foo...
[3] https://ocs.umich.edu/programs/waste-reduction/composting/
[1]: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/in...
In 1875, per [1], [2], and [3], a common laborer's average annual income was on the order of £30-£50. (DDG found no data on the income of Victorian rag-and-bone men specifically.) So when the article says:
> To do so was punishable with a fine of £50 (approximately US$65), which at the time was a substantial sum of money.
The "approximately US$65" is only meaningful at the December 2023 exchange rate, and "substantial" is carrying all the information and doing a poor job of it. But the important, comparable thing is that it was on the order of his annual income.
It might be more accurate to say that it would be comparable to fining a British person the median household income of £32,300 [4] or an American $74,580 * 0.75 = $55,935 (after taxes) [5]. Quality of living, cost of services, and various baskets of goods were more or less expensive at different times, so there are certainly additional comparisons or modifications you could do.
I'm not much of a historian, but when I want to understand how much of a disincentive the fine was to a rag-and-bone man, that is a start to the kind of context I need. I don't have the context for the savings or borrowing power available to a Victorian laborer - did most people have savings accounts, an estate, retirement account, or other assets they could draw on? Did the government run installment agreements, or did a convict have to borrow from a bank and repay the loan over time? Were they just thrown in a debtor's prison until their family and friends paid the fine? I don't know.
Regardless, it wasn't equivalent to me imagining a loss of $65.
[1] http://www.afamilystory.co.uk/history/wages-and-prices.aspx
[2] https://www.victorianweb.org/economics/wages.html
[3] https://www.victorianweb.org/economics/wages2.html
[4] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personal...
[5] https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2023/demo/p60-27...
Those masterful images because complete
Grew in pure mind, but out of what began?
A mound of refuse or the sweeping of a street,
Old kettles, old bottles, and a broken can,
Old iron, old bones, old rags, and that raving slut
Who keeps the till. Now that my ladder's gone,
I must lie down where all the ladders start,
In the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart.
- William Butler Yeats
from The Circus Animals' Desertion