ENR 150th Anniversary

This 1925 cover story described a comprehensive citywide waste recycling system in Los Angeles, which was in its fourth year of operation. Households and businesses had to separate out organic waste, which was then collected and shipped 50 miles by rail to a 600-acre industrial-scale hog farm. The farm’s design is described: the layout encompassing farrowing pens, weaning pens and fattening pens. The feeding floors of the fattening pens feature continuous concrete paving to allow thorough cleaning between feedings. The resulting refuse is transported to a large composting pit, from where, after four months of digestion, it is ground up and used to fertilize 14,000 acres of orchards and vineyards. The average quantity of garbage consumed was 19 lb per hog per day.