1543 – Water supply and sewage plant (with farm) at Bunzlau (Silesia)
The first public sewage plant is believed to have operated in the Silesian city of Bunzlau in 1543. The custom of lighting bonfires on summer festival days was perceived to have “the virtue that a great fire hath to purge the infection of the air.” Pigs were employed as scavengers in medieval towns. Mumford notes…