Salvage

Refuse collection taken over from contractors by Corporation in 1853. Night-soil and domestic refuse taken by carts to farmers and tips. As domestic refuse increased, night-soil decreased with the gradual provision of drains and water-closets. 1911 absorptions greatly added to a problem then nearly solved within the city: 400 pan-privies still remained in Greater B'ham in 1938. The Salvage Dept., established in 1919 to extract and sell usable material, had 14 disposal depots with 9 destructors. More were added, the latest being the large Tameside works at Castle Vale. Tipping of refuse at the city borders. e.g., at Yardley Wood and Sheldon, continued between the wars where sites were to be raised. At Tyseley Works, the clinker from the destructor was used to raise banks level with the canal and rail embankments, so that the Cole, Spark, and the former mill-race flow in deep gorges. During and after the war, rubble was tipped into hollows along the Cole and elsewhere, e.g., the infilling of Wash Mill Pool.