Domestic Civil Defence -
Refuse Disposal

People are so used to the weekly removal of their rubbish,refuse or garbage, that for many its non-collection seems almost inconceivable. The writer has experienced the problems caused by a dustman's strike, recalling all too clearly the rotting and rat-infested mounds of refuse in certain city streets. As with many householders, the writer had to remove bags of refuse to the municipal tip, after doing whatever seemed possible to reduce the volume. This section summarises what can be done - and why it is essential.

Failure of the collection service can occur because of roads being blocked, strikes / industrial action, or as a by-product of war or natural disaster. The hazards from refuse not being collected are serious. ALL LEAD TO DISEASE. :-

• Rat Infestation : The accumulation of piles of rotting food debris is certain to attract and encourage breeding of rats. Apart from the morale factor, rats carry dangerous diseases, the least of which can be Weil's Disease, the worst, Pasteurella pestis. Domestic dogs and cats could become infected by hunting the rats.
• Fly Infestation : Flies (and to some extent, rats) are highly-mobile carriers of Dysentery and other nasty diseases. Piles of rubbish are excellent breeding areas for fly maggots. Disposable nappies represent a source of sewage that can be highly attractive to flies and rats.
• Pollution of Water and Land : A frequently overlooked hazard, but a nightmare if poisons and bacteria are washed out of the rubbish by heavy rain. Children and animals are at risk of poisoning, injury and infection.

Reducing the Problem :

1 : Domestic Treatment of Refuse :

One can massively reduce the quantity of refuse produced for disposal by sorting the refuse into several categories and disposing of it appropriately.

• Glass jars and glass bottles : Recycle these to bottle-banks. Rinse before stacking to remove foods that flies and bacteria can feed on.
  BUT... Jars can be made into oil-lamps. Jars and bottles can be used to hold and preserve food.
• Metal cans : Wash these out and crush them flat with a hammer. That way, they will not encourage flies and bacteria and occupy a tiny space in the bin.
  BUT... Tins can be made into candle-holders or burners, so don't destroy them until you check whether you can re-use them. Tinplate and aluminium are useful materials for making things with.
• Plastic packaging and bottles : Rinse off any food particles, then crush the packaging into as small a volume as possible. Whilst polythene is reasonably safe to burn, PVC (a hard, clear plastic, also used to rigidly wrap food) gives off acid fumes and poisonous dioxin. Clean plastic bottles with some Milton solution, and consider re-use for storing water and other liquids - but label them with the new contents to prevent poisoning yourself.
• Clean paper and cardboard : Bale this up for paper salvage. Alternatively, if you have a compost heap, mix it with vegetable wastes and make compost. If you have a fireplace, roll the paper into 'logs' and burn them. Paper is a useful material - if it is contaminated with sewage or rotting food, it should be composted or burnt. DO NOT COMPOST GLOSSY OR COLOURED PAPERS.
• Vegetable wastes : If at all possible, compost these or bury them in the garden. They will rot down and feed your garden plants.
• Cooked foods containing meat, grease and dairy products : Food should never be wasted, but sometimes it is inevitable. Liquid wastes can be flushed down the toilet (if working) - but make it small amounts - solid wastes need to be buried or burned. The writer once made the mistake of incinerating rubbish in the back garden - the neighbours were very polite, but asked me not to do it again. Composting the wastes calls for a small rat-proof bottomless bin part-buried in the ground and with a strong half-inch mesh base, like those 'Green Cones' used to safely dispose of cat- and dog-dirt. Alternatively, mix the food waste with something like cat-litter, wood or coal ash or sawdust, to absorb and neutralise juices and fats, before disposal to the bin. Disposal to the bin in cleaned uncrushed cans or old sealed jars may one way of keeping flies and rats at bay.
  
  Composting enthusiasts use wormeries to convert meat, grease and dairy products into wormcasts, the best of fertilisers. You can buy ready-made wormeries holding a couple of pounds (one kilo) of worms living in a fibrous bedding, feeding them with up to a pound weight (half a kilo) of moist cold meat wastes and dairy leftovers per day.

2 : The Babycare Nightmare : Disposal of 'Disposable' Nappies :

Disposable Plastic Nappies are NOT Disposable, but are a Landfill Hazard
Appallingly, Australian statistics indicate that 5% of the weight of all domestic refuse consists of these sewage-contaminated plastic disasters. These heavily-advertised convenience items represent a sewage time-bomb in any landfill. The best advice in a crisis is DO NOT USE DISPOSABLE PLASTIC NAPPIES. The plastic does not rot (although the sewage does) and the plastic makes them dangerous to incinerate in a bonfire. The garden burial of 'disposable' nappies is not really practicable, because of their number and volume - up to six per day. Their storage in plastic sacks creates a rot and sewer gas hazard and is attractive to flies and vermin.

There are some eco-friendly disposable nappies, notably Spirit of Nature - Moltex range. This site is not intended for commercial advertising, but this is a possible improvement on the general run of disposables.

In a crisis make use of towelling or flanelette nappies with some kind of biodegradable soft fibre absorbent pad (nappy liner/cloth wipe). The pad can be composted or buried with other Sewage and the towelling or flanelette nappies can be soaked and washed, or boiled before re-use. The writer noted some interesting examples of 'stuffable' nappies in the Kittikins Range, designed to hold a disposable cellulose liner and with good drying characteristics.

A WRVS improvised solution to drying wet clothing and nappies is to put hot embers (e.g. from ash-covered charcoal) inside a cake tin with the sides and lid punctured, so air is heated and escapes to dry nappies and clothes on a clothes horse or other drying frame placed above it - the best support shape would be a frame like a beehive or a wigwam. Make sure the cake tin sits on a layer of house bricks (four should be enough) to prevent heat or fire damage to the floor. The whole assemblage should stand in some well-ventilated room, garage or car port, to avoid the fumes from the embers causing carbon monoxide poisoning.

3 : Recycling Other Rubbish - normally for Special Uplift : This can include broken kitchen machinery, old or damaged furniture, old or worn-out clothing, car sump oil and damaged electronic equipment such as radios. Most of this material is inert and can be stored for collection - or for use in improvised equipment. A few ideas that spring to mind :-

1. Old Cookers as Improvised Cookers : These contain grids useful for emergency feeding cookers and stoves. However, an oven is an oven, so the use of old gas-type ovens as box ovens for cooking seems worth trying. These normally have a vent on the back to allow gases and steam to escape, whilst the careful removal of an old gas burner will leave a small hole as air-supply for a hot charcoal heater (e.g. disposable barbecue) in an old oven tray.
2. Old Clothes-Washers and Tumble Driers : The casings are good sheet metal, whilst the drum and the spinner inside can be re-used for other purposes. It is suggested that perforated stainless steel spinner drums can be used as large food or water strainers, or used as braziers. However, it may be possible to rig a crank handle and a pulley wheel to replace a damaged motor with a manual spin-drier system, although this may need a good mechanic. Most washing machines fail because of damage to the programming system rather than the motor, so here again there may be an opportunity for adaptation. The writer has wondered whether a pulley driven by an old motor mower (e.g. 1/4 or 1/2 horsepower Briggs & Stratton four-stroke) could power a washing machine. A totally defunct washing machine might still be a good source of pipework and pumps for a water purification system - a skill taught originally in the 1980s at a water board training centre on its Civil Defence course.
3. Old Fridges and Freezers : These have been buried on their backs amongst shading shrubbery and used as improvised miniature cellars for dry vegetables and (of course) for wine and beer to delight the heart in hard times.
   A working fridge which has no power supply need not go to waste. In winter, one could take ice or snow and put it in an old perforated metal tray above the dewbin, to keep perishables in the top of the fridge cool.
4. Old Vacuum Cleaners : The motors and pipes are often in working order and a good tinkerer might be able to re-use them in other equipment such as a washing machine. Some cleaners (e.g. the Dyson range) are so designed as to be easily dismantled for spare parts.
5. Old clothes as Haybox insulation : This could again be in an unused oven (disconnected) or in an unusable fridge. The advantage would be that the trays would support the cooking pots in the middle of the insulation, which would be supplemented by that of the oven or fridge.
   Most fabrics can be made into clothing, but the shortage of buttons, belts and zips makes old clothes useful as a source of these.
6. Old furniture and carpets : Unless absolutely rotten, these can come in useful. The frames of chairs and sofas can be re-webbed using cord, wire mesh or plastic sheeting, to support new squabs and cushions. Two or more layers of a woven-backed carpet might be useful as re-webbing. Foam filling can be re-used as cushion stuffing, but (like foam carpet backing) may be too perished - but don't be tempted to burn it, as it can give off LETHAL FUMES. Old carpet can serve as underlay (but not if rotten). Consider recycling a damaged or part-worn carpet as mats, rugs, or carpet tile. The writer has used unwanted carpets and collapsed cardboard packing boxes as loft insulation and flooring.
7. Car Sump Oil : This is a useful fuel, absorbed into other materials such as sand, wood ash or sawdust, then burnt in a trench cooker. Alternatively, used to soak sacking as a creosote-replacement, it can be used to seal latrine-bases against flies and rats.
8. Damaged Electronic Equipment : Whilst a ruined printed circuit is not much use, other parts in a computer or television can be used to repair or improvise ('breadboard') a radio receiver, or one might cannibalise several similar machines to produce (say) a computer in working order. To be really exotic one can construct a crystal radio from scrap - Prisoners of War and others did this. The designs are given on the following website :- http://home.houston.rr.com/molerat/foxhole.htm. It might be an amusing project.
9. Consider the possibilities of recycling 'scrap' : Anything with sheet steel in it can be used (with a set of metal shears, a hand drill, a hammer and rivets) as material for simple trench-top cooking ovens. Rubber hose may be useful with water systems. Rubber and plastic sheet may replace worn-out washers on pipework. Plastic sheet, be it opaque or clear, rigid or flexible, can come in for a variety of crisis repairs to windows and roofing. Tins - whether used for holding food or as humble drinks-cans - are sources of sheet metal for other purposes.

Improvised Equipment and Emergency Information :-

[Incinerator Designs :]