HEALTH

NEW HAVEN DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH

Vol. XLIII, No. 5	May, 1916

This article excerpted from p. 2 of the issue.

The recent annual clean-up, conducted under the auspices of the various municipal departments, the Civic Federation, and citizens interested in maintaining our city in a healthful, beautiful, and salutary manner, has been carried out as efficiently as the public at large would allow. This work can be no better than the People make it by prompt cooperation.

The questions that forcibly present themselves are why it is necessary for us to have this annual clean-up, why do all allow their premises to become littered with trash and defiled by decaying organic material, why are these materials not removed at stated intervals in the winter as well as in the summer, and why, if these collections are detrimental to health, is it not the duty of the municipality to provide for the removal of this waste as well as for any other?

The writer is of the opinion that it is just as essential for the city to collect the ashes and rubbish at stated intervals as it is to collect the garbage. This is the custom in all of the large cities and in many of the small ones. The cost falls upon the same parties in the end. The property holder pays it in taxes and those that hire pay it in rent.

The rubbish contains much that may be of value when it can be collected in large quantities. Many cities sell, at a good profit, the privilege of reclaiming anything of value. The writer has been told by one interested in this reclamation in a large city that it was very profitable, several thousand dollars being obtained monthly for the tin and lead of old cans alone.

We believe an adequate municipal collection of garbage, ashes, and rubbish is the only way in which the premises in all sections can be kept healthy and sightly, and it will make our annual clean-up unnecessary, thus contributing to the cause of the city beautiful.