Human Waste Management

Plumbing and sanitary facilities are undoubtedly taken for granted in the modern society. But there was a time when it wasn't possible to flush a toilet. Also, not all of the garbage cleanup we undertook back then was wise.

It's a common misconception that individuals in medieval and earlier eras just threw a chamber pot out the window to dump whatever filth they had in an alley. There are numerous publications about history that will dispute this assertion. Because of this, the smell of human excrement was just as offensive then as it is now. According to the tale, doing this was not a common practice. . Yet, it should be noticed that the phrase "as a standard practice" performs significant labor in that line.

Cities in England had set up fines for anyone who were caught putting trash on the sidewalk in front of their homes. That suggests that it occurred frequently enough to warrant fines. And even when it wasn't being disposed of in the least hygienic way, it wasn't being done in a hygienic way either.

Residents of several communities used to empty their daily waste into a bucket and pour it into a stream. That's not the ideal option, and it leads to some of the dirtiest streams and rivers you can imagine when you have hundreds or thousands of residents in one area. Modern Essex has a street called "Chute Street," which got its name from a term that sounds somewhat like "chute" but has a much worse smell. All of the sewage for the town was removed by a creek that flowed down the street.