9. CO-OPERATION OF OTHER DEPARTMENTS

The Police Department, the Health Department and the Department of Parks and Playgrounds all co-operate with the Department of Public Works in keeping the community clean. Park guards try to keep careless people from marring the beauty of the lawns with paper, boxes, and other litter. The police, if necessary, are ready to support the work of cleanliness by admonishing people who throw rubbish in the streets and on pavements. In flagrant cases they may even arrest these bad citizens. The Health Department keeps an eye on street cleaners to make sure they are maintaining the streets in proper condition, and not neglecting their jobs. A citizen can complain to the Board of Health if a street in his neighborhood has not been properly cleaned, and if complaints made to the streetcleaning officials have not brought results. The Health Department will immediately bring pressure on the street cleaning officials to remedy such conditions. In many cities the City Planning Commission is working to devise some plan by which the community can take over the disposal of wastes, and handle the work in buildings that are conveniently situated so that the collecting wagons do not have too long a haul; and to install plants that do not create a nuisance to the neighborhood in which they are operated.

10. OTHER CO-OPERATING AGENCIES

In some communities private organizations of school children, associations of business men, and chambers of commerce are forming anti-litter leagues to co-operate with the street cleaners. In New York City volunteer workers are each assigned to a city block, and are called block captains. They are responsible for the condition of their blocks, and they make regular reports to headquarters, which in this case is the Merchants' Association. When a block captain has seen a pedestrian throw a newspaper on the pavement, or a janitor sweep litter into the gutter, or a storekeeper or a peddler throw rubbish

into the street, he speaks to the offender and tells him that such acts are against the law because they injure community welfare. If the offender persists, the block captain may call a policeman to his aid, and have the law-breaker punished. But in most cases the person spoken to apologizes, for his action has been careless and thoughtless. This work helps to educate the public to be more thoughtful to others, and to have a pride in maintaining their neighborhood in a clean and sanitary condition. It promotes better citizenship.

11. HOW THE Citizen CAN HELP

Every one can co-operate in the work of keeping the community streets and sidewalks clean by merely not doing certain careless things. Don't throw aside on the pavement the newspaper you have finished reading. Don't tear a letter into scraps and drop it on the sidewalk. Don't drop fruit skins on the pavement, or throw them out into the street, or over the fence into some vacant lot. At nearly every corner you will find a large can with a wide-open mouth ready to do its share to lighten the job of the street sweeper. On this can is printed in large letters, "USE THIS CAN," or "PUT REFUSE HERE." Save your newspaper or your scraps of paper or your fruit skins until you come to a can; then throw them into it. This is one way to be a good citizen. Find out if your city has an Anti-Litter League. Perhaps you would like to join it and help in the crusade for cleanliness. Make every day a "Clean-up Day." See that refuse is properly handled at the source, in your home. Garbage and ash cans should be kept in a sanitary condition, and when ready for collection, not too full. The strain of lifting hundreds of heavy cans is not negligible, and the householder should not pack them to their fullest capacity. All garbage cans should be kept tightly covered, at all times. No citizen should make general complaints in regard to the refuse disposal service before making some investigation into the facts of the case. Don't condemn all incinerators because the one in your neighborhood emits bad odors. Find

out why it is not being properly operated. Don't insist that reduction plants are too great a public nuisance to be endured. Perhaps the odor that comes from them is due to delay in handling the garbage, which allows it to decay; not to the reduction process itself. Find out the conditions first; then complain to the city officials who are in charge of the service.

TOPICS FOR REPORTS AND DEBATES

1. Clean Desks and Clean Streets.

2. Dust Prevention.

3. City Streets in Medieval Days.

4. The Qualifications of an Efficient Director of Street Cleaning. 5. The Work Done in One Day by the Department of Street Cleaning.

6. The Best Method of Sewage Purification for this Community. 7. A Visit to an Incinerating Plant.

8. The Incinerator in the Home.

9. The Junk Business.

10. Making Money out of Garbage.

RESOLVED: That our street cleaning force should be uniformed in white.

RESOLVED: That for our community the combined system of sewers is better than the separate system.

RESOLVED: That reduction is a more profitable and more desirable method of disposal of wastes than incineration.

RESOLVED: That the community can handle wastes disposal more cheaply and more efficiently than contractors can do it.

QUESTIONS

1. Suppose the street in front of your house were left some summer day littered with dirt and rubbish. What should you do?

2. Every time a breeze sweeps a cloud of dirt into your face you are suffering a bombardment of disease germs. How can you secure protection against this danger?

3. Watch a street sweeper at his work and prepare to tell the class exactly what he does.

4. What are some of the advantages of replacing men by machines in the work of street cleaning? How far can manual labor be dispensed with?

5. Describe to the class the method or methods by which your community copes with a heavy snowfall. Find out, if possible, whether the authorities responsible are prepared beforehand.

6. Whose duty is it to keep sidewalks clear of snow? Of other refuse?

7. Has your community an ordinance prohibiting the distribution of handbills in the streets? What is the purpose of such an ordinance? 8. Why is it against the law to expectorate in the streets and in street cars? Is it forbidden anywhere else?

9. What are the safeguards that a good sewerage system must have to protect your health?

10. What elements in crude sewage make it dangerous to health? 11. What is the danger in drinking water from shallow wells?

12. What officials are in charge of the building and maintenance of sewers in your community?

13. How is the sewage of your community finally disposed of?

14. Why are sewage collection and disposal a community and not an individual function?

15. Do the sewers aid in the work of keeping your city streets clean? How?

16. How many times a week is garbage collected in your community? Ashes? Rubbish?

17. How and by whom is it taken away from your house?

18. What is done with the litter and the rubbish? With the garbage? 19. What department is in charge of the service of waste collection and disposal?

20. If a dead animal is lying in the street in your neighborhood, what should you do?

21. What authority has your Board of Health in regard to refuse collection and disposal?

22. Why should all garbage cans be kept covered?

SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL

1. "General Statistics of Cities for 1909." Published in 1913 by the Census Bureau, U. S. Department of Commerce.

2. Report of your community officials in charge of collection and disposal of

wastes.

3. "What We Should All Know About Our Streets," by Mrs. Julius Henry Cohen. Published by the Women's Municipal League, New York City.

4. "Snow Removal Methods for Cities of About 200,000 Population" in Engineering and Contracting," February 4, 1920, pp. 136–137.

5. "Stream Pollution," by Stanley D. Montgomery and Prof. Earle B. Phelps, Public Health Bulletin No. 87. A digest of judicial decisions and a compilation of legislation relating to the subject. Can be obtained from the United States Public Health Service, Treasury Department, Washington, D. C.

6. "The Treatment of Sewage from Single Houses and Small Communities," by Leslie C. Frank and C. P. Rhymes. Public Health Bulletin No. 101. Can be obtained from United States Public Health Service, Treasury Department, Washington, D. C.

7. "Notes on Main Drainage and Its Relation to River and Harbor Front Improvements," by Morris Knowles and John M. Rice. Reprint from the Proceedings of the American Society for Municipal Improvement, Convention of 1918.

8. "Recovery of Valuable Constituents of Garbage," by S. A. Greeley, Published in Canadian Engineer," Nov. 27, 1919, pp. 495-498.

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9. "Wealth from Waste," by H. J. Spooner.

10. "Refuse Destructors or Incinerators," by F. W. Mason. Published in " Western Municipal News," March, 1920.

11. "Prevailing Systems of Collection and Disposal of Garbage, Rubbish and Ashes." Published by the Chamber of Commerce, Waterbury, Connecticut. Also in "The American City" for May and June, 1920.

12. "Modern Methods of Sewage Disposal," by E. S. Chase. "The American City" for April and May, 1920.

13. "Operation, Maintenance and Construction of the Municipal Reduction Plant of the City of Chicago." 1921. Apply to James T. Igoe, City Clerk, Chicago, Ill.

14. 'Collection and Disposal of Municipal Refuse," by Rudolph Hering and Samuel A. Greeley. Published by the McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1921 ($7.00).

15. "Municipal Wastes, Their Character, Collection and Disposal," by H. R. Crohurst. Public Health Bulletin No. 107, 1920. Apply to U. S. Public Health Service, Washington, D. C.

16. "Municipal Housecleaning,” by Capes and Carpenter. Published by E. P. Dutton & Co.