![]() By the early 1900s it was cheaper to own a motor vehicle than a horse-drawn carriage and economics eventually ensured that horses were no longer central to the urban transport equation. In 1894, the Times of London predicted that within 50 years, every street in London would be buried under 9 feet of manure.Īs we well know, this version of history did not come to pass.Įven as mayors and city planners were struggling to find legal and regulatory solutions to the Great Manure Crisis, internal combustion technologies were silently maturing to the point where automobiles had started to become affordable at scale. Leaving aside the filth and the smell, this gave rise to numerous other problems like sanitation and the rapid spread of communicable diseases-so much so that residents in the 1890s were literally being killed by the streets they walked on. Manure soon began to pile up on the streets faster than it could be cleared away and by the end of the 19th century, London was literally carpeted with a warm, brown matting. ![]() As a result, toward the end of the 19th century, the city of London was generating over 20,000kg of horse dung every month. The average draft horse produces 10kg of manure per day. Horses generate a not inconsiderable quantum of solid waste. And while the challenges of congestion and hygiene are not dissimilar to those we face today-19th century vehicles were horse-drawn and that brought with it a uniquely different set of issues. The city had 11,000 carriages, several thousand buses and a variety of carts, wagons and buggies-a vehicular density unprecedented in history. ![]() Towards the end of the 19th century, London was virtually unliveable. ![]()
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