Early New Yorkers tossed garbage into the street or into one of the rivers. The city stunk. In the absence of organized waste disposal, pigs played an important role in reducing (and reusing and recycling) trash in the city.
Brought to America by European colonists, pigs were commonplace and an important source of food. Without room to house them, hogs were largely left to roam the city foraging for food scraps, which not only kept them alive but also removed waste from the streets. By some estimates, upwards of 20,000 pigs free-ranged on the streets of Manhattan in the early 1820s.
Today there are 30,000.
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Police_Department
I wish they acted as street cleaners.
*33,000
Then, in 1832, they started spreading rabies, so they were all butchered. That’s how the tradition of Christmas ham got its start.
I also have a monorail I can sell you.
I also have a monorail I can sell you.
Is there a chance the track could bend?
Hello sir, I am interested in purchasing one monorail please.
Was it really less stinky once the waste is transformed into pig poop?
Yea, because pigs don’t poop where they eat if they have enough space. They will designate a pooping place for their pack(?), which makes it easy to clean
They will designate a pooping place for their pack(?)
Something something New Jersey [cue laugh track]
lolololol
So, free trash collection with extra steps?
There was already a system in place to clear the horse manure, the pig manure just went with it. You can fertilize with manure, less so with trash.
So who cleaned up the pig shit?
On May 23, 1845, they formed a municipality, today ~34,727 pigs roaming NYC¹
How many are on the force now?
What stopped people from snatching them up and eating them?
The same thing that keeps people from stealing all the free cows in fields by the side of the road.
Time, effort, and threat of punishment is enough to discourage most people who consider stealing stuff and pigs are a whole lot of work to steal and eat.
They did eat them. That was part of the cycle.
You ever tried to chase a pig?
And add to the richness of the aroma, everyone used outhouses as well.
Germ theory only took off in the 1850s. Just bear that in mind.
