When you now put your Put your rubbish out for the dustman. Did you ever wonder why he was called the Dustman?
The dust was from the fire grate in the houses, the raked out burnt ash and cinders from the coal fire were put in the dust bin, this was collected once a week by the Council the men then got called Dustmen.
Early days the dust cart was horse drawn, not only did they collect these very heavy iron bins they had to position a ladder to lean against the cart at each house call to climb to empty the bin. Some of this went into fields, but most was transported to the Council depot on a canal where the rubbish was tipped in to barges that was towed by a Tug to the Thames then downstream out of the Thames to deposit the rubbish out at sea.
Chris copyrite.