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Note: Rubbish In Resources Out report
Dow Jones Architects is proposing a radical series of waste-crunching towers across London to help meet recycling targets and generate low-cost energy for local communities, says James R Payne
The great Victorian engineer Joseph Bazalgette was appointed by London's Metropolitan Board of Works in 1856 to oversee a radical transformation of the city.Responding to a severe environmental health crisis, his job was made easier - perversely - by cholera epidemics and the overpowering stench of the Great Stink of 1858. Members of Parliament, with handkerchiefs at their noses, voted to give him sweeping powers and huge financial resources to clean up the Thames, then an open sewer running past the Palace of Westminster. London's enclosed sewer system is now largely hidden and it is taken for granted that human waste simply disappears from view. Bazalgette's fantastically ornate pumping stations outside the city are the most visible reminder of his incredible and lasting achievement.
Dow Jones Architects, working with Arup's alternative waste technology specialists, has produced a report, Rubbish In, Resources Out, for the Greater London Authority and Design for London. It may not attract the executive power granted to Bazalgette, but it proposes an equivalent transformation for London and its attitude towards rubbish - while rubbish trucks are not yet dumping their loads outside the Houses of Parliament, there is some urgency.
Under the London Plan first published in 2004, the GLA is committed to making London 85% self-sufficient in terms of waste...