Le "destructor" britannique. Transfert des techniques et destruction des déchets

The british destructor. Technology diffusion and refuse disposal. The development of the refuse destructor in the 1880s represented a major turning point in the disposal of urban waste. The technology, as developed in Great Britain, was meant to drastically reduce the volume of solid wastes through burning with little or no additional fuel. The destructor was also devised as an alternative to land or sea dumping of wastes-both of which created serious economic and environmental problems for a country with limited open space. By the turn of the century, british engineers successfully adapted the destructor to serve functions in addition to refuse disposal, especially the generation of electrical power. A «destructor system» evolved, therefore, enhancing the technology's value and broadening its functions. The success of the destructor in Great Britain led to the diffusion of the technology to the continent, Asia, and North America. In the United States, especially, the destructors were touted as a panacea to the urban refuse problem and initially implemented with few alterations. American engineers and city officials gave little attention to the changing context within which the destructors were to operate. Differences in the nature and quantity of the refuse and the availibility of competitive disposal methods led to the initial failure of the destructors in the United States. However, even after the technology was more effectively adapted to the American setting, little attention was given to the market for destructor-generated electricity and other by-products. Ultimately, other disposal methods effectively challenged cremation or incineration of wastes-especially the increasingly popular sanitary landfill idea. Relative to Great Britain and other European nations, the implementation of the destructor method failed as a disposal panacea in the United States primarily because it was perceived as a singular piece of equipment and not as a system of disposal and power generation. Using this one case the paper will explore the process of technology diffusion as it applies to urban sanitation systems, and the problem of adapting a new technology without sufficient attention to economic and environmental variables

Archaeology · Business · Context (archaeology · Economics · Geography · Natural resource economics · Waste disposal · Waste management · Engineering · Water Governance and Infrastructure