Why Did Buildings Burn Their Garbage?
Before dependable municipal garbage collection existed, disposing of household refuse could be a difficult and unpleasant task. Waste might be dumped, buried, hauled away by private collectors, or simply accumulated until someone could remove it.
Incineration offered an appealing alternative. Burning waste dramatically reduced its volume and could eliminate odors and organic material that might otherwise attract insects and rodents. For large buildings producing substantial quantities of refuse, an on-site incinerator could therefore seem like a practical sanitation solution.
But these systems were far
