Cleaner streets 1894

We all want cleaner air and we're currently negotiating the difficult shift from petrol-based vehicles to electric. However, it's not the first time that we've had to make such a shift. 

Back in 1894, the streets of New York were even filthier than today but for different reasons. Before cars we utilised horses but the 15 to 30lbs of manure produced daily by each beast was an issue. With over 150,000 horses in the city, it meant that more than three million pounds of horse manure per day were deposited on the streets. And then there was the daily 40,000 gallons of horse urine. The city stank. 

Pedestrians had to negotiate a minefield of poop. Some people, spotting an opportunity, set themselves up as 'Crossing Sweepers' and, for a fee, they would clear a path through the mire. Wet weather turned the streets into swamps, but dry weather turned the muck to dust, which was then whipped up by the wind, choking pedestrians and coating buildings. But even when it had been removed from the streets the manure piled up faster than it could be disposed of. As a result of this, vacant lots in cities across America became piled high with manure. In New York these sometimes rose to forty and even sixty feet high. 

Then, of course, there were the plagues of flies and beetles that were attracted to the rotting manure. This, in turn, helped to spread diseases like typhoid. On top of all of that, pedestrian fatalities were higher then than now. Seven times more people were killed in horse-related incidents in 1916 Chicago than automobile accidents in 1997. Admittedly horses are more skittish and unpredictable than cars and if they stampeded, they could be deadly. They were also prone to kicking, biting and trampling bystanders. Horses were killed too, of course, or died of old age and disease. In 1880, around 40 dead horses were cleared from New York streets each day (nearly 15,000 a year). 

The manure problem reached crisis point in 1894 and urban planners were tasked with finding an effective cleaning method but no one really could. So cities just lived with the filth until motorised vehicles, electric trams and buses solved the problem on its own. And, believe it or not, there are some people who claim that the manure crisis was manufactured by - you guessed it - early car companies to sell more cars. 

Sound familiar? 

Social media is currently awash with fact-dodging memes about how 'bad' electric cars are. 

The more things change, the more they stay the same.