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Saturday 29 December 2018

Bin alley ballet


Saltaire's neat terraces all have service alleys running between them. The houses each have small backyards, many still containing the stone outhouse in which their private lavatory was sited (though many of the outhouses have been reduced in height now). These sanitary arrangements were a major innovation in Victorian Britain, and I think I'm correct in saying that they were WCs (water closets) with proper drainage, so the 'night soil' men didn't have to roam the alleys at night collecting waste, as they did in other places that had only earth closets.

Nowadays, our bathrooms are inside. The back alleys are crowded with wheelie bins, since most of the yards don't really have room for the green general waste and grey recyclable waste bins that we are required to have. In my imagination, the bins all come alive at night and perform a wondrous ballet in the alley.

You'd be forgiven for thinking that was an urban fox running up the alley in my photo. In fact it was a rather large ginger cat.

6 comments:

  1. We are blessed with three bins per household - general waste, recyclables, kitchen and garden waste. After the bin men have come and worked their magic it's more like break-dance than ballet!

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  2. We have those ugly bins too but most parts of downtown can't get them behind the house so they sit out front. Our collection is at the front of the house.

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  3. That cat must be quite accustomed to its rounds there.

    Trash, recycling, and compost bins are collected at the front of homes here.

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  4. In addition to John's three we in Germany have an enormous blue fourth bin for paper only. It is a top money spinner for the Stadt.

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  5. We are allowed one bin and a second for recycle. We have to drag our bins down to the curb and leave it all day for the trucks to pick them up. A show on PBS showed a town in England with the same set up. They all had patios between them. I bet they removed the bins for the taping of the show.

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  6. Technology and modern innovations are wonderful, I can't imagine being the guys who came and collected waste from toilets.

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