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War on waste in Brum

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Birmingham council city refuge department took over a shop front with a display in Birmingham city center to tell people what to do with waste in the Great War
 
Interesting. In the town I live in which has many Victorian and Edwardian houses you can still see where hundreds of decorative cast iron railings were taken out for the war effort - supposedly for the iron. In fact they were all dumped out at sea here - it was just a 'morale booting' ploy.
 
With the men rushing to join the army and munitions factories at the start of the war vital parts of workplaces became understaffed one of these was the Refuge Department that collected Birmingham’s rubbish which suffered a severe shortage of men as they left in great numbers. The refuge started to pile up with uncollected rubbish and the council were left with no alternative only to put posters round the city asking people to bury or burn what they could, as they could see a heath crisis looming.
As the situation got worse women started to fill the jobs the men had left becoming coal women, dust women, train drivers and filling all kinds of jobs traditionally done by men, keeping the wheels of industry turning.
Below are two of the Poster’s put up by Birmingham City Council 
 
Soon after the Great War started so did the food shortages, bread becoming scarce as the Government was trying to feed a vast army and when something is scarce to price goes up, in 1916-17 bread prices reached record levels and the King even made an appeal for the public to eat less bread as well as other staple foods like potatoes meat eggs etc.
Note in the poster a U-Boat being rammed by a Light Cruiser
Well, the Light Cruiser The City of Birmingham was the first ship to sink a German U-Boat the U-15 in the North Sea four days after the declaration of war
 
When Coal became short and it was rationed people had lots of slack in their cellars which they started to mix with all kinds of things so they could burn it on the fire.
Photo shows how to mix Slack with Clay then moulded into balls which when set would burn
Just one of the economy measures devised during the war
I must add in the Slums growing up I did not know what clay was and I had never seen any
 
The Price of newspaper rose to 9d a per pound so many a housewife stored old newspapers for re-sale to fishmongers etc.
 
Now this is something I have heard about, but never come across.
Hay Cooking...... Economy in fuel led to the adoption of hay-boxes for completing the cooking of partially cooked food
I should think there are a few old scouts that could tell us how it works.
 
Hayboxes
A haybox is an insulated container which can make significant fuel savings - up to 70%! Just bring the food to a boil, place the pot inside the haybox, and cover. The haybox will contain the heat in the food so that it will continue cooking without using extra fuel. In terms of our three heat concepts, a haybox works by maximizing heat storage and minimizing heat loss. A haybox is ideal for foods with a high water content like soups, stews, rice, boiled eggs and more. Foods which lose a lot of steam on the stove can be cooked with less water using a haybox.

https://www.inthewake.org/b1cooking.html

I guess the modern equivelent is the slow cooker? although powered in a small way it has the same characteristics and suitable for cooking the same sorts of foods.
 
Following the wholesale destruction of the food ships by the U-boats, steps were taken to ration the countries food supplies, food cards or rather books of coupons were issued to every civilian and to every soldier home on leave.
Every book contained eight leaves of numbered coupons printed in various colours and overprinted with the name of the commodity for which it was available.
Each coupon represented a quarter of the weeks ration and could only be used in the week it was dated.
The principal commodities rationed were, meat, sugar, lard, edible offal (tripe, liver, kidneys etc) and butter and margarine.
The coupons were retained by the shopkeeper upon purchase.
Penalties up to £100 or 6 months in prison, or both could be imposed for misuse of a food card.
Only by these drastic measures could Britain escape the serious danger of starvation under the threat of a German Submarine blockade.
The lengths people went to get extra rations formed the material for the majority of jokes of the day
 
straw as all ways been known for it's thermal insulation properties hay ricks used to have steel bars inserted during th build and these would moved around to dissipate the heat build up. this was made worse if the rick was built in damp or wet conditions, if a hayrick ignited it was put down to what was known as spontaneous combustion.
straw as been used in bedding and body insulation because of it's thermal characteristics and that's why they used straw boxes
 
Too right John, we have harvest our hayfield, and it should never be bailed until it is perfectly dry. A hay barn fire is frightening, the smoke is very black and there are lots of sparks.

Hay boxes were used in this area of East Anglia during the power cuts of the 70's. Duing the winter months we wrap our horses water bucket in hay to stop it freezing overnight.
 
Amazing stuff.......... I believe coal slack was also mixed with newspaper pulp made from soaking newspapers overnight in water. After which they rolled balls of the still wet pulp in slack from the coal cellar.
 
there was also a gadget which looked like a chip chipper were you filled with water soaked newspapers then you pulled down the handle and it compressed into a solid brickette when dry it burnt very slowly then you backed it up with wet slack which kept the fire in all night
 
Ive saw those advertised in magazines some years ago, would they have been used in WW1? or are they a more modern invention.



gb5s4.jpg

Extract from a 1918 government report on the cost of living showing the increase in spending that families had to make to feed, clothe and keep themselves warm​
 
The gadget you mention John came out in the 40's
Also everybody Thanks for all the Straw info which is very interesting
 
Pears soap came up with a good gimmick it started to sell its soap in special cardboard packets so all you needed to do to send it to a soldier in France was to put an address and stamp on it.
Here is a great poster advertising Pears soap
 
When rationing was in full force. All kinds of rules and regulations were instituted to stop the wastage of food. To throw rice at a wedding became a summary offence, and the sale of luxury chocolates was stopped.
No sweetmeats over 2d. per ounce or chocolates over 3d. per ounce were permitted. The use of starch in laundry work was restricted. Horses and cows, and even the London pigeons, were rationed. No corn was allowed for cobs, hunters, carriage horses, hacks, most of which had by then been commandeered for Army use.
A man was fined £50 for collecting bread crusts for pig food, and in defence said that otherwise they would have been wasted, as navvies would not eat crusts.
The amount of bread or cake which might be sold at tea shops for afternoon teas was reduced to two ounces. It became an offence to adopt and feed stray dogs.
Local Food Controllers were appointed. Butchers were ordered to display price lists, and bakers were forbidden to bake any but Government regulation bread. Grocers would not sell to people who were not registered with them for sugar, and, it was said, insisted upon other purchases being made in addition to sugar. Milk was also controlled.
The time came when so great were the discomfort and ill-feeling caused by the food queue and the suspicion that the rich were obtaining more than their fair share of eatables that the demand for compulsory rations became more and more insistent.
In the bitter cold and rain of these depressing winters of the Great War, women and children waited outside the shabby shops common to the poor districts of all towns.
They carried baskets, string bags, bags made of American cloth, and babies, and stood shifting their burdens from one arm to another to ease their aching. Women used to go from shop to shop trying to find one at which they could buy meat or margarine, tea, and possibly a little extra sugar.
The time came when meat cards and ration cards of all kinds were in force. The public were also required to register for bacon. The rations served to the troops to Britain were reduced and it became legal to inflict a fine up to £400 for hoarding food.
The price of fish in those days was a nightmare to housewives. Sole was up to 4s. per pound, and turbot 3s. An old account book of these days shows that in the autumn of 1917 milk cost 9d. per quart, butter as. 6d. per pound, tea as. 6d. per pound, a cauliflower 1s., a fowl 12s as. 6d., bananas 5d each, a tin of peaches 4s. 6d., and a flat sponge sandwich cake the size of a teaplate 2s. 3d
 
Here's one of those paper brick makers. We still use ours to get rid of the mountain of unwanted newspapers etc that we get delivered. All of the paper in our place gets shredded and when there is a big pile, we load it into a big dustbin, add water, a dollop of water based glue, and a dash of paraffin. Make the bricks, let them dry, and stack in shed for winter. (we are still allowed to have wood fires here). They make excellent fire starters. We use them in the BBQ as well to get the charcoal going.
 
That's a great idea Frantic. We send all our papers for recycling because we don't use our fireplaces anymore. We don't have a gas connection in this house but are thinking of getting one...a gas fireplace would be nice. We literally get pounds and pounds of paper every week. It just keeps coming stuffed with advertising and the paper itself is mostly advertising. You are recycling your own paper which is great. I bet those paper bricks make a good fire starter.

I remember in Brum decades ago we had to "draw" the fire and were hard pressed to find a sheet of newspaper to hold up on the fireplace!
 
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