8. Modern sanitation, a case of the solution catching up with the problem
It is so easy to take for granted the simple convenience of flushing, and gone in an instant is that inconvenient by-product of metabolism. It passes through a system, and by application of technology, it is sanitized and returned to the environment at no inconvenience to the producer. However, as modern cities began to develop, it seems that no one gave any thought at all to something as fundamental as waste. Most European cities were built around major rivers, but very quickly the limitations of a river like the Seine, the Rhine or the Thames to deal with the waste of an entire city became clear. We are also not just talking about human waste, but vast amounts of animal and production waste. With no formal system of waste management, it would not take long…
But as with everything we have touched on in this list, it was necessary first for sanitation as a holistic, urban concept to take root before the infrastructure of a city could be designed around it. Functioning sewers, in other words. Often these advances have come about thanks to some great disaster like the Great Fire of London, although, in fact, it was the ‘Big Stink’ of 1858 that really got London’s city fathers thinking. That year witnessed one of the great heat waves of the age, and in a city drowning in human, animal and industrial waste, the stench reached a critical level.
It is hard to imagine that the human species, so endlessly creative, would not have at some point devised a solution to this real effect of urbanization, but it certainly was an odorous journey to get there.