Separate collection - The 19th century was a period of great social and health changes

Over the centuries, starting from the Neolithic, the problem of waste and sanitary conditions of the population were not taken seriously and were not seen as an important problem. 

As for man-made waste in the pre-industrial era, where the population concentration in urban agglomerations was not high, these did not constitute an obstacle as everything that was reusable was recovered for both human and animal activities. 

Food waste, wood and iron were recovered, even sometimes excrement, which was carefully collected, dried and reused or sold as fertilizer. 

It certainly cannot be said that the cities or villages were clean or hygienically free from diseases deriving from the spread of bacteria and viruses, but it can be said that the scarce human presence due to the occupied territory maintained a balance between the health problems given by poor hygiene public (and personal) and unused waste, respect the livability of urban agglomerations. 

Things changed suddenly and dramatically during the 1800s when the massive urbanization of cities and the advent of the industrial revolution began, which attracted poor people who moved from the countryside to the cities to look for work. 

For example, London in the first 30 years of the nineteenth century doubled its population by touching one and a half million people and reached two and a half million in the following twenty years. This disproportionate growth in people who normally lived in poor sanitation and crumbling housing created a chain of dramatic public health events. 

In 1832, a cholera epidemic broke out in London and also in Paris which caused tens of thousands of deaths. 

While not knowing the causes of death of the population, the problem was attributed to the great stench of open landfills, including roads and rivers, which received all the human and industrial waste that man was disposed of. 

The first post-epidemic interventions focused on this waste, more for a question of social decorum than of true health awareness, in fact the scientific knowledge of cholera only occurred in 1883 by the German scientist Robert Koch who identified its existence, although it would seem that as early as 1854 the Italian Fabrizio Pacini had isolated the bacterium. 

The first sewers were built, an attempt was made to connect entire neighborhoods that used cesspools and the industrial sewage was channeled into the new sewers. Not everything happened as simply as told, in fact, the problems were enormous and at first the results were poor, as the water conveyed ended up in the rivers anyway and the problems arose again downstream of the cities. 

It had to wait until the end of the century when studies on microbiology began to find effective solutions also in the field of water purification, together with the improvement of the personal hygiene of the population as well as the first vaccinations. 

As for solid, non-recoverable waste, which was normally deposited outside the home, the growth of the population in the new urban agglomerations led to new problems. 

Although most of the goods that were sold did not have any wrapping or rarely in sheets of paper and anything that could be recycled was taken seriously, the unsorted garbage still began to accumulate.

The colonies of mice lived in close contact with the populations of the poorest neighborhoods, attracted by the waste thrown freely on the city territory, creating further health problems. 

It was also a matter of decorum that, first, Ferdinand II of Bourbon, king of the kingdom of the two Sicilies, issued on March 3, 1832, a law that regulated the management of urban waste, providing for strict rules on their abandonment and requiring the same for the material that made them up. 

The royal decree was not to be taken lightly because there were also prison sentences for offenders. It also set up landfills where people had to bring their own waste and rules for cleaning the areas outside the homes.

Automatic translation. We apologize for any inaccuracies. Original article in Italian.