Scalefour Forum

Hi all

I've tried to find answers to this with no success. In the 50s if an industry had a large water tank would the top be covered or open. Or perhaps partially covered or was it pretty much anything goes?

Also before the common industrial type skips that businesses use now a days what did small buisnesses use? Just a lot of dustbins or something else?

Cheers

Jim

Water tanks have a cover on them to stop the rain getting in.

jim s-w wrote:Hi all

I've tried to find answers to this with no success. In the 50s if an industry had a large water tank would the top be covered or open. Or perhaps partially covered or was it pretty much anything goes?

Jim,

When we built Pulborough it was noted that the water tank had a hip roof although there was a gap around the edges so that the rain went into the tank. The reason given was the roof was to stop bird using the water and falling in and blocking the outlet.

Dave

Jim,

In the late 60's I worked as a 'saturday boy' for Sainsbury's. Out the back of the shop was a large round galvanised bin with a lid, mounted on four wheels. It was emptied by an early version of the 'lift up and tip over' mechanism that is just about universal nowadays. Cardboard was recycled and sent back to the warehouse at Basingstoke and tomato crates and other wood went to a local chap who took it away as firewood. This may be a bit late for your layout but there may be others who are following the thread.

Tony Comber

And a quick Google (is that a verb now?) found http://www.stilltimecollection.co.uk/gallery/53-0.html with a picture of a similar bin and vehicle in Coventry.

Tony Comber

It depended to an extent on what the waste was. Many manufacturing industries produced waste which was, for example, highly inflammable. For such waste their insurers would normally require a separate store outside, of non-combustible construction. Depending on its nature it might then be removed, burnt in the factory boilers, or just tipped somewhere - no great concerns about the environment then. In some trades, such as flourmills and sawmills, cyclone extractor systems were more or less mandatory by the 1950s, because of the explosion risk. Scrap iron though might just be dumped outside in a designated area somewhere, pending sale to a scrap metal dealer or, for large quantities, direct to as steel works. It would then be loaded, usually by crane, into a lorry or railway wagon, commonly a mineral wagon. More valuable metals, such as copper, would probably be stored securely as the scrap was much higher value.

Lots of things were just piled up till someone who wanted them came with a wagon. I can remember circa 1960 a small tripe works in Oldham just piled up the bits they couldn't use against an outside wall, and every few weeks someone came and shovelled it into their wagon. I don't know what they used it for. Could have been pies. There was an amount of atmospheric polution, and flies, in summer.

shipbadger wrote:

...In the late 60's I worked as a 'saturday boy' for Sainsbury's...

I remember similar bins with castor wheels at Junior school in the 50s. most were at the back of the Kitchen and some were reserved for slops... horribly smelly. They were a bit taller than us kids, so about 4ft high and 3ft diameter. There was another corner where there were standard household bins, which were cleared weekly.

Thanks all

We had the round bins when I was at school in the 80s. The link tony found is fascinating!

Jim

jim s-w wrote:I've tried to find answers to this with no success. In the 50s if an industry had a large water tank would the top be covered or open. Or perhaps partially covered or was it pretty much anything goes?

Also before the common industrial type skips that businesses use now a days what did small buisnesses use? Just a lot of dustbins or something else?

When I worked at Wolverton Works, there were two 100,000 gallon water tanks - a relic of when the site was twice as big - which did not have any roof covering. You would not believe the amount of filth which accumulated in them - particularly, green slime. I suspect that in former times, they had been boarded over, but the covers had gone awol over the years. If you are talking about contaminated water, I would suggest that the usual practice would be to enclose it - depending on how it was ultimately processed.

Regarding industrial waste - it is worth remembering that before the seventies, there was no such thing as "waste" in most industries - everything went for further re-use and a large army of small organisations existed to make money out of "by-products". For example, in Ashton-under-Lyne, there was a works which processed oily rags from the engine rooms of the cotton mills. They squeezed out all the oil - which went for further re-use - then laundered the rags which were sent back out again to clean another engine. Once the rags were worn out they were burnt in the boiler to make steam!
Most places also had an "incinerator" (grand term for a non-grand artifact!) round the back where anything else was reduced to smoke and ash.
It is only really with the advent of cheap imports that this system broke down - now we import something from the Far East, use it once then buy a later model, if it goes wrong, we buy another and send the original for "recycling" even if it only had a blown fuse! Anyone still at school in the eighties can have little concept of just how different the world was in the fifties!!!

Best wishes,