Rauno Lahtinen and Timo Vuorisalo

'It's War and Everyone Can Do As They Please!' An Environmental History of a Finnish City in Wartime

SINCE THE VIETNAM WAR (1961–1973), the environmental effects of war increasingly have become objects of research and public concern. In the Gulf War (1991) and War in Iraq (2003– ) environmental damage has been one of the major concerns for environmentalists and the international media. Since 1999, the United Nations also has investigated the environmental impact of wars and conflicts.¹ But wars had environmental implications long before the Vietnam War. The modern weaponry of the twentieth century caused enormous environmental destruction in both world wars, for example. Wars also have other, more indirect and less obvious effects on the environment which are not quite as easy to observe or study. The environmental consequences of war can be complex and unpredictable, and—as some have argued—sometimes even beneficial.²

Despite the growing interest in the environmental impact of modern wars, scholars have paid little attention to the effect of World War I and II on the urban environment. From an environmental point of view, wars seem quite short and perhaps therefore insignificant. Even in Central Europe, urban historians have ignored war and the environment in the twentieth century, although there were dramatic repercussions in many cities of that area. Until recently, Finnish historians also have mostly ignored the home front, focusing instead almost exclusively on military history and politics. In Finland, urban environmental history as a whole has only very recently attracted academic attention: Urban water management has been studied the most.³ Some research has been done on urban agriculture, mostly in ethnology and geography.⁴ It is not an exaggeration to say that the environmental history of Finland during wartime has been neglected. The chaotic years after the two world wars especially have been neglected. One important reason is that the surviving documents are often fragmentary.⁵

This essay is the first to concentrate on the environmental history of a Finnish city at war. We consider two sets of questions. First, how did the wars affect the urban environment? Were those impacts lasting? Second, how did the experience of war shape people's environmental attitudes? Did the public environmental debate change during the war periods? We focus on the city of Turku. We conclude that the Second World War and its aftermath fundamentally transformed the way people experienced and used their environment, and had a long-lasting effect by suppressing public environmental debate. Environmental values that had emerged strongly in the interwar period vanished almost completely during the Second World War and didn't return for years—even decades.

Though the destruction caused intentionally by enemy bombing was substantial in Turku and in many other Finnish cities, we are mainly interested in the indirect effects of war. After a brief overview of the history of Turku, this article explores three different aspects of the city's wartime environmental history.⁶ We analyze the effects of the sudden rise of urban agriculture, which had long-lasting implications for the urban environment and land-use during and after both world wars. Next, we examine other implications of the scarcity of raw materials, for example recycling, and the way scarcity changed people's everyday lives and environmental attitudes. Then we explore the effects of wartime industry, which was responsible for worsening river pollution and carelessly placed industrial landfills all around the city. Although we concentrate on the situation in one city, one can assume that conditions in most other Finnish cities would have been much the same.

Our analysis is based largely on a systematic study of newspaper coverage of environmental issues, supplemented by interviews. Although few environmental historians have paid attention to the environmental debate in the press or studied newspapers systematically, a recent study of Danish newspapers found that environmental problems were constantly reported in the newspapers of Copenhagen in the nineteenth century and even more so in the twentieth century.⁷ In Finnish cities, pollution was also a common topic in early twentieth century newspapers. Media researcher Pertti Suhonen has shown that the amount and quality of environmental writing has a clear effect on how much people are interested in environmental issues.⁸ The role of newspapers in raising the general public's awareness of environmental issues was essential, because other mass media did not even exist in Finland before the late 1920s. For many topics, newspapers proved to be the best or even the only available source material. We focused on Uusi Aura and Turun Sanomat, the biggest and most influential Finnish-language newspapers in the city. These newspapers represented the moderately conservative Finnish Party, although Turun Sanomat was less conservative and later even liberal. Uusi Aura lost its position as the leading newspaper soon after the First World War, when its opinions became more right-wing.⁹ The socialist newspaper might have given a different view, but it seems to have published much less about environmental issues.¹⁰ We were surprised by the amount and scope of environmental articles in the old newspapers (see Tables 1 and 2). It is, nevertheless, easy to understand that people were interested in environmental issues that affected their everyday lives.¹¹

Table 1. Number of Environmental Articles, 1913–1921.
The chart shows the number of environmental articles concerning the city of Turku in newspapers in 1913–1921. (Uusi Aura 1913–1917, Turun Sanomat 1918–1921). In 1918, the newspaper was not published for two months because of the civil war and also in 1919 there were gaps due to strikes. In 1916, the future use and conservation of the island of Ruissalo caused a lively debate. (We counted articles on water pollution, waste management and landfills, animal protection and urban animal observation, the use of city parks, destruction campaigns against rats, pigeons and stray dogs and the protection of the island Ruissalo.)

Table by Rauno Lahtinen.

Table 2. Number of Environmental Articles, 1938–1949.
The chart shows the number of articles concerning environmental issues in the city of Turku in 1938–1949 (in the Turun Sanomat). Although the size of newspapers increased rapidly after the war, the number of environmental articles grew only moderately. More importantly, they mostly avoided writing about environmental problems. (We counted articles on the same topics as in Fig. 1).

Table by Rauno Lahtinen.

Map 1. The City of Turku in the Early Twentieth Century.

Courtesy of the Swedish University Archives.

The City at War

TURKU IS LOCATED on the southwest coast of Finland (see Map 1). It was founded in the thirteenth century and was the capital of Finland until 1812, when the capital was moved to Helsinki. In 1827, almost the whole city of Turku burned down. The city was re-built according to a new grid plan drawn up shortly after the fire. In the late nineteenth century the city grew rapidly from a small wooden town, so that by the late 1940s it had some 100,000 inhabitants and was the second largest city in Finland. Helsinki already had become the largest city in the 1840s. Turku also became a major industrial center after the 1870s.

Finland, an autonomous Grand Duchy within the Russian Empire, played no important role in the First World War (1914–1918). Turku and Finland as a whole were far from the actual battles before a Civil War (January–April 1918) started between the socialist Reds and the eventually victorious nationalistic Whites. Nevertheless, because of a severe food shortage, the impact of the war was extreme in all walks of life. At first, Turku remained peaceful and the economy even flourished, because Russia badly needed Finnish products.The number of metal-industry employees, for example, more than tripled in Turku between 1913 and 1917.¹² But everything changed in 1917: Trade with Russia collapsed because of the March and October revolutions, causing massive unemployment and inflation. It was a restless year and Turku became one of the most revolutionary cities in Finland. Disorder was common, especially in the autumn, and a general strike occurred in November 1917, just before Finland declared independence from Russia in December. When the civil war started in January 1918, the Reds took over the city and stayed in power until April. The civil war period was nevertheless surprisingly peaceful in Turku because the major battles were fought elsewhere.¹³ After the war, a camp for war prisoners was located within the city limits not far from the city center.

Finland's foreign trade and food deliveries were heavily dependent on Russia, which soon had serious consequences. Finland was not at all prepared for a long-lasting war and Turku was hit badly by severe food shortages in 1917. These continued throughout the civil war of 1918 until the spring of 1919. In 1918, the food situation was exceptionally harsh, and there was even a fear of famine.¹⁴ Massive immigration to the city from the surrounding countryside worsened the food situation considerably and resulted in a serious shortage of housing, possibly the worst such shortage in all Finnish cities.

An important consideration when thinking about the reporting of environmental news during this period is censorship. When Finland was part of Russia, censorship restricted political writing in the press, although the situation was becoming murkier by the early 1900s. The state of the urban environment had started to interest newspapers increasingly in the late 1800s, when the pollution of the urban watercourses had become evident not only in Turku, but also in Helsinki and in many other Finnish and European cities.¹⁵ The possible polluting effects of a new sewerage system had been much debated in the newspapers in the 1890s before the system was built. During wartime, newspapers were under severe censorship and it was not possible to publish news without official approval. During the First World War, censorship mostly concerned political news and didn't directly affect environmental writing. Newspapers were told, however, that it was not advisible to write about food shortages or give advice to the public on such topics because it gave too much information to the enemy.¹⁶ Although censorship ended in 1916, Russian troops stayed in Finland until 1918.

The decades between the wars were mostly a time of prosperity and economic growth. The Finnish-speaking majority gained power after the country's independence in 1917. Until the election of 1919, a small but wealthy Swedish-speaking elite governed Turku. From an environmental point of view, the interwar era also was a time when municipal waste generation quickly increased.¹⁷ The state of the river Aura, which runs through the city, became critical because more and more wastewater was drained into the river from factories and households. At the same time, drought and a lack of drinking water became big issues in the city. Water pollution peaked in the 1930s, when the river experienced oxygen depletion.

The Second World War contrasted dramatically with the war twenty-five years earlier. During the Winter War (November 1939–March 1940) the Soviet Union attacked Finland, which was forced to cede territory in the eastern part of the country. Because of its important port, Turku became one of the most heavily bombed cities in Finland during the Winter War. In the Continuation War (June 1941–September 1944) Finland tried to reclaim the territories lost in the Winter War. Turku was again heavily bombed and experienced a long-lasting food shortage. Although the Continuation War was not successful in reclaiming territory, the country did remain independent. During the War in Lapland (September 1944—April 1945) against the former ally Germany, battles took place only in northern Finland. Wartime bombing mostly targeted the harbor area, but it also caused considerable destruction to the built environment in Turku—3.3 percent of the city's dwellings were destroyed. All in all, 868 houses were completely or partly destroyed, but surprisingly, only 79 people died in the bombings.¹⁸ Debris as well as empty blocks reminded inhabitants of the bombing for years. The bombs probably also caused some soil pollution, although no data on this are available.

Some preparations were made before November 1939 in fear of a coming food shortage because the war had started in Central Europe a few months earlier. In the spring of 1940, food rationing started in Turku. The food shortage became both serious and long-lasting, as the Continuation War lasted longer than first expected. The number of urban residents decreased considerably during the Second World War, because young men were at the front. Also, women, children, and old people were strongly advised to leave the city and move to the safety of the countryside, where it was at least a bit easier to find food. It is not known how many people stayed in Turku throughout the war, because many traveled to the countryside and back again many times: Some made the trip as often as possible to obtain food and other products.¹⁹ After the war, the urban population increased rapidly as Finland had to resettle 400,000 refugees from provinces lost to the Soviet Union. The area of Turku—along with most other cities—started to expand considerably when the first new suburbs were built in the late 1940s.

Urban Agriculture

URBAN AGRICULTURE, which we define as the raising of crops or animals within or near the city limits by city dwellers, proved important during both chronic and acute food shortages. Still today it is estimated that in developing countries two-thirds of urban families cultivate crops.²⁰ It is therefore no wonder that urban agriculture became popular in Europe during the war years. In fact, agriculture was perhaps the most immediate change in the wartime urban environment; it had a major role in changing urban land-use during the war, and it caused serious environmental degradation.

Urban farming and animal husbandry were still common in all Finnish cities in the latter half of the nineteenth century and were therefore not novelties in the 1910s. Many city houses had cowsheds. In the summer, animals were taken daily to the fields outside the city centers just as had been done for centuries. In 1890, people living in Turku officially owned 655 horses, 344 cows, and 308 pigs. The 1890s were a turning point; with the exception of horses, the number of animals in the city started to decrease rapidly because of tightening hygiene regulations. In the second half of the nineteenth century, poor hygiene and animal excreta were understood to be hazardous and the cause of infectious diseases.²¹ Urban animal husbandry also grew economically less profitable when new, cheaper food products and manufactured articles became easily available in shops.²² The decline continued in the early twentieth century, but the First World War soon brought a change. As food supplies diminished and prices went up, urban agriculture suddenly started to flourish again.

Figure 1. City Children Working the Fields.
Schoolchildren work a field just outside the city limit in the early 1920s. Nearby fields had been taken into use during the war years. They belonged to the Turku City Mission, whose aim was to teach children useful skills and love for nature, and keep them from wasting their summer idling in the streets.

Photo Courtesy of Turku City Mission, Finland.

The local newspapers wrote surprisingly little on urban agriculture in the 1910s, probably because of censorship. City dwellers were encouraged to cultivate grain and vegetables in all possible land areas within and around the city. The first such encouragement was published in May 1916, when malnutrition was feared.²³ In 1917 and 1918 these articles became more numerous. City officials reacted in 1917, renting land to twelve hundred people who wanted to grow potatoes. All told, these rentals covered over fifty hectares, mostly unused wastelands or fields in the city's fringe areas, which had not been cultivated before and required a great deal of work. City officials were severely criticized for their lack of action against the food shortage and for failing to help the cultivators by providing seed potatoes. Most city dwellers were, nevertheless, able to buy food from the surrounding countryside, where agriculture continued relatively normally. All in all, the food shortage had come as a great surprise and the authorities were quite helpless in the face of it.²⁴

After the civil war in 1918, the food shortage was at its worst and potato growing was widespread in the city. Middle-class and even upper-class ladies could be seen working in the fields. In addition, Red war prisoners were ordered to prepare land for cultivation in one of the city parks, where lawns were transformed into potato fields.²⁵ In 1919, even more fields were reserved for potatoes than the year before, although the worst food shortage had passed. War also changed morals: Because of constant theft and acts of mischief in the fields, the city hired guards to watch the potatoes.²⁶

No official estimates of the number of animals in the city during the First World War were ever made. According to official statistics, 577 people reported agriculture as their main source of living in 1910. By 1920, that number had tripled to 1,843 people.²⁷ This almost certainly also meant a substantial increase in the number of domestic animals, at least three-fold but probably much more. Because of growing demands for better hygiene, in 1916 authorities hired a city veterinarian whose main task was to supervise the quality of milk and meat sold in shops, and the official also inspected cowsheds and piggeries in the city.²⁸ This indicates that the number of urban animals was rising and that there were problems with hygiene in shops and yards. Animal protectionists were extremely worried about the new situation, arguing that cruelty to animals had become common during the war years: Many animals died due to the lack of feed, while others were severely malnourished.²⁹

Although the food shortage was transient, many people wanted to continue their new agricultural interest and insisted that land areas should be reserved for this purpose. Following international precedents, some societies had given schoolboys allotments to cultivate in 1914, and soon the idea of an allotment garden for adults was put forward. These plans faded because of the war. But the food shortage of 1918 probably convinced authorities as well as many organizations of the need for permanent cultivation around the city. After many difficulties the long-planned allotment garden was finally opened in 1934.³⁰ In addition, gardening became popular; plans for garden suburbs were made and garden competitions were organized frequently. School children, too, were thought to learn useful skills by growing potatoes and other plants, although many found the work tedious. Because of these children's summer hobby, however, large areas in the city's fringe area were being cultivated in the interwar period.³¹ The number of animals in the city center decreased rapidly in the 1920s, and by 1932, practically all domestic animals except horses needed for transport had vanished.

The Second World War again changed conditions in the city dramatically, especially compared to the prosperous 1930s. Although the political atmosphere in Europe had been tense for much of the 1930s, the outbreak of war in November 1939 still came as a surprise to most Finns. Some preparations had been made in the autumn, but not nearly enough to prepare citizens for the coming food shortage. The situation was nevertheless better than during the First World War, when practically nothing had been done in advance.³² Food rationing started in the spring of 1940, when bread was put under control. In the autumn, meat followed and soon almost every foodstuff was rationed. That, of course, meant that a black market started to flourish and the lack of food in the shops forced almost everyone to break the law. The authorities were well aware that most people had to buy some of their food on the black market and did not intervene with minor misdemeanors. Rationing lasted until 1954, although only a few items were under special control after 1949.³³

Figure 2. Turku After the Bombardment in 1940.
Turku after the Soviet bombardment in 1940. Only a small part of the city was as severely damaged as the surroundings of the St. Martin church.

Photo by Yrjö Paldan. Courtesy of Turku Swedish University archives.

It is unclear how much land was under cultivation within city limits during the Second World War. Such cultivation was always regarded as only temporary and surviving documents are fragmentary.³⁴ The newspapers reported the locations of communal potato fields and also estimated their size. In addition, many factories and enterprises reserved fields for their employees and the authorities advised city dwellers to use all possible land for cultivating potatoes and other plants. Backyards, wastelands, and roadsides were all used and it is impossible to track them all down. The authorities decided that city parks would not officially be used as potato fields although it was a common practice in some other cities and many wished it in Turku as well. Potatoes were nevertheless grown practically everywhere, even in the city center.³⁵

Articles about urban agriculture appeared constantly in the newspapers and were much more numerous than during the First World War. Agriculture became essential to the welfare of the city and affected large numbers of readers, so the issue was followed closely (see Table 2). When potatoes again appeared in the shops a couple of years after the war, urban farming was mostly abandoned. In 1946, the city had leased about 140 hectares of land for potato growing, but in the autumn of 1948, potato crops in Finland were so enormous that prices collapsed. At least in Turku, a large part of the crop was left unharvested in the ground. In 1949, the land leased by the city dropped to eighty hectares, but even that remained partly unused.³⁶Media interest also ended: Only a few short newspaper articles described how school children still carried on cultivating their little patches of land. The war years had caused a considerable change in urban land use and more was to come. The abandoned fields soon became wastelands which were commonly used as dumping sites.

Internationally, the Second World War also has been regarded as the time when new chemical weed killers were taken into use in the fields. Agriculture soon changed substantially as DDT and other pesticides were released on the market.³⁷ In Finland, this did not take place on a large scale before the late 1950s. DDT and other new pesticides were, however, commonly used in homes and gardens to kill vermin and insects in the late 1940s. Turun Sanomat commented that the invention of these effective toxins was a positive consequence of the war.³⁸ During the war pesticides were, nevertheless, practically non-existent. Fields, wastelands, and roadsides were therefore full of weeds, which, although good for biodiversity, added to the city's bedraggled image.³⁹

The number of domestic animals in the city during the Second World War can only be guessed. In comparison to the situation in the late 1930s, the differences were nevertheless striking. Animals were commonly kept even in the city center and pigs, sheep, and especially rabbits and chicken were ubiquitous. For example, many people kept animals in sheds, cellars or boiler rooms.⁴⁰ One courtyard could even house hundreds of rabbits, which were killed and sold as soon as they had grown big enough. With some exceptions large animals like cows were not usually kept in the center.⁴¹ According to the city veterinarian mistreatment of animals again became common, because too many animals were kept in small cages, often in cold, dark, and damp cellars.⁴²

Rabbits were a wartime animal. Finland does not belong to the natural range of rabbits (their closest natural populations live in southern Sweden), and domestic rabbits were a novelty in early-twentieth-century Finland. Rabbits adapted well to urban conditions and became popular during the First World War. The number of rabbits decreased quickly after the war and in the 1920s and 1930s their number remained minimal despite attempts to promote consumption of rabbit meat. Rabbits again became popular in the cities during the Second World War, however.⁴³ They were considered suitable pets for children, who could easily learn to take care of them and earn some money from the sale of meat and skins. Children could even do the killing and pelt preparation themselves. The demand for rabbit fur and meat—usually sold on the black market—was practically endless.⁴⁴ Sheep also became popular because they were needed for wool. In some cities the number of sheep increased twentyfold in just four years.⁴⁵ Forests, fields, roadsides, backyards, and industrial areas suddenly became important, because hay and other plants were collected to feed the animals. Many ordinary and usually unwanted plants, such as dandelion and couch-grass, suddenly became valuable as animal feed (and as substitutes for coffee and tea). Farmers near the city were not always pleased by the behavior of urban animal breeders who boldly came to their fields to collect hay, clover, and even wheat.⁴⁶

Figure 3. "The Secret Plan of a City Dweller."
In reality, cows were never kept in bathrooms, but in some cases smaller domestic animals were raised in apartments, especially in the capital city of Helsinki. In Turku, urban backyards were bigger and fields closer to the city center.

Image reprinted from a Finnish wartime magazine published in 1943.

Because of the war conditions, the Health Commission of Turku allowed the establishment of piggeries in built-up areas in 1940. Officially, the number of piggeries rose from 4 in 1940 to 87 in 1945. Because people tried to hide their animals from the authorities or underreport their number if possible, illegal pigs were kept everywhere.⁴⁷ In 1943, the city veterinarian estimated that there were roughly 1,400 pigs, thousands of rabbits and dozens of sheep and goats kept in the city area of Turku, and those animals attracted rats, mice, and flies, causing serious sanitary problems. Three years later the city veterinarian said that it would be best to get rid of rabbits and pigs in the city as soon as possible because of the growing problem with rats. He claimed that practically every backyard in the city housed at least chickens if not also bigger animals.⁴⁸ It is most likely that in the city center urban animal husbandry peaked as late as 1947, when the city veterinarian found 121 temporary piggeries in the grid plan area. By 1950, all but two had disappeared and the urban livestock population returned to the level of the early 1930s.⁴⁹

According to the newspapers, hygiene standards collapsed completely during the war and the situation remained the same in the late 1940s.⁵⁰ Urban agriculture was a key factor to blame. In comparison to the 1930s or even the late nineteenth century, the number of domestic animals was huge. Although authorities tried to supervise the situation, the police simply could not afford to be strict.⁵¹ The existing lists of animal owners show that animals were legally kept in the very center of the city and even next to the market square, which must have caused serious sanitary degradation. In addition, the growing number of stray dogs and cats became a huge problem. As in the market square, hygiene level in shops and restaurants also collapsed and, despite complaints, remained low in the early 1950s.⁵²

Scarcity, Domestic Wastes and Recycling

IN A SENSE, a wartime city can be called ecological. It has been argued that people unconsciously become more environmentally responsible in their behavior and consumption patterns because of scarcity.⁵³ Theoretically, this could have been the case during both world wars. People ate food they cultivated themselves or bought from the countryside. Synthetic fertilizers and pesticides were unknown or unavailable. Domestic wastes were few and used for fertilizer and animal feed, or were recycled. People were forced to be as self-sufficient as possible. Wood replaced imported fossil fuels. There were few cars, and cycling and public transportation became extremely popular.⁵⁴

Many realities, however, point in the opposite direction. Food shortages led to epidemics that killed far more city residents than bombing or battles in either world war.⁵⁵ Malnutrition forced local residents to shoot all possible game animals: For example, moose were poached to the brink of extinction in Finland by 1918. According to Turun Sanomat, Russian soldiers shot a large number of birds in and around the city in the war years before their departure in 1918. Whether the news was partly propaganda is not clear, but the article reported that Russians had shot all the water birds in Turku and destroyed bird populations in the nearby archipelago.⁵⁶ Poaching and illegal fishing also became serious problems in the 1940s.⁵⁷

Domestic wastes were not a problem in the 1910s. Night soil and household wastes were usually well sorted and taken care of by professional waste collectors. The amount of waste remained at quite low levels. Most domestic wastes were composted and used for fertilizing. City dwellers stayed in the city during the war and life went on relatively normally. Although piles of waste near the city were often criticized in the media, war brought hardly any change for the worse. In the interwar period, hygiene became a crucial concern. Two years are especially worth mentioning. In 1929, Turku hosted a huge celebration in honor of the city's seven hundredth anniversary. The city center and parks were cleaned up and put in order for visitors. Wild cats, stray dogs, pigeons, rats, and hooded crows were killed by the thousands to improve hygiene in the city.⁵⁸ The year 1939 came to mark the high point of all hygiene campaigns. Because Helsinki had been selected to host of the 1940 Olympic games, officials hoped to make all of Finland and especially Turku spotlessly clean and elegant by the time herds of foreign tourists entered the harbor. The Olympics were finally cancelled because of the war, but the summer of 1939 witnessed unparalleled enthusiasm for tidying up the city and its environment. The debate continued in the newspapers all summer: People wanted to get rid of foul waste dumps that still existed in the city and its fringe areas. Residents took action to improve the situation, but the outbreak of war in the autumn put an end to these plans.

In the Second World War—especially during the Continuation War—the situation was different than in the 1910s. A large portion of the population moved away from the city or had to accept new responsibilities and tasks. Wastes were hastily piled wherever possible, which created excellent conditions for rats. Dung and other organic wastes were, at least in theory, no problem—they were needed either as pig food or as fertilizers and therefore became valuable when the import of artificial fertilizers was not possible. At least some waste dumps became important for residents; when rubbish from the bombed harbor was transported to landfills, for example, nearby residents collected everything useful they could possibly find. Everyone was grateful for the landfills and nothing valuable was left by these scavengers. Second-hand shops experienced a boom selling old clothes, metal, and firewood; children were eager to collect valuable waste materials.⁵⁹ Unfortunately, scarcity also led to criminal activities: An unforeseen wave of crime swept through the country during the Continuation War and especially soon after it.⁶⁰

Campaigns to collect more waste materials for the benefit of the army were launched many times a year both during and after the war, although few residents had materials to spare. Everything was good enough: Rubber, rags, copper, tin, aluminum, bottles, and even human hair were collected. Waste paper collecting was started in 1942 and has continued since.⁶¹ The results were impressive; massive heaps of junk were collected in the harbor and elsewhere. After the war, waste metal became even more valuable. It was imported from Central Europe and North Africa and mountains of metal were piled near the harbor. In the harbor area there were at least six big heaps of waste metal, the biggest of which contained over four thousand tons of scrap from the battlefields of North Africa. In addition to these, newspapers reported a large number of smaller piles containing at least 140,000 metal canisters.⁶² For the environment, the impact of these campaigns must have been complex: Any valuable waste was cleared away from the city, but on the other hand, new piles of waste appeared.

During the First World War the population increased quickly and extensive logging was done in the vicinity of the city to acquire firewood. During the Second World War woodcutting was much more intensive. When the war started, the demand for wood immediately tripled because oil was no longer available.⁶³ Especially in the last stages of the war, logging was done wherever possible, and bad weather conditions in the winter of 1944 meant that forests near the city and the roads simply had to be cut. The shortage of wood was at its worst in 1945–1947, when the population of the city grew fast and wood also was needed for reconstruction. Logs were even imported from Eastern Finland, despite transportation difficulties.⁶⁴ This cutting cannot be called ecologically sustainable. It was clear to everyone that the landscape looked ugly after this extensive woodcutting and it could not have continued for long. More importantly, the war years also have been seen as the turning point in the way forests were tended, partly due to war reparations. Unlike before, extensive logging became common and efficiency the cornerstone of forest management.⁶⁵

Before the First World War Finland had only about 1,000 to 1,200 cars. The First World War stopped the import of cars completely and the imports did not start again until the early 1920s. The lack of fuel prevented almost all car traffic for years.⁶⁶ Cars did not become a major polluter in Finland even in the 1930s, as the number of cars per capita remained one of the lowest in Europe. The number of cars diminished rapidly in the city soon after the Winter War started in 1939. Almost all trucks were taken to the front by the army. Because it became impossible to buy gasoline, practically all the remaining cars in the cities were converted to wood fuel.⁶⁷ Although at first this may sound like an environmentally friendly solution, it was in many ways far from it. Burning wood created a lot of smoke and the wood-gas generator had to be cleaned often. Still, complaints about the bad smell and the stacks of charcoal on the roadsides and in the streets were not common. Instead, the public was very patient, understanding that the situation was only temporary and there didn't seem to be any real alternative. Even after the war there were only few complaints in the newspapers.⁶⁸ Cars, nevertheless, consumed a lot of wood, which was one of the factors contributing to large-scale deforestation near the cities.

River Pollution and Industrial Landfills

RIVER POLLUTION and landfills are the two realms where the effects of war were most visible in Turku. Although domestic wastes were partly responsible for pollution, wartime industry had a much greater impact. Water pollution had become a noticeable topic in early twentieth century newspapers both in Finland and in other Scandinavian countries. In Turku, the sewage system built from 1895 to 1898 led all wastewater to the river untreated. The situation worsened in the early twentieth century and the stench of the river was annually criticized in the newspapers.⁶⁹ The First World War made matters much worse. In particular, the heavily polluting metal industry experienced an unparalleled boom because it produced war materials and other goods for the Russian army.⁷⁰ The amount of wastewater rose tremendously, which was easy for everyone to notice because the state of the river in the middle of the city worsened quickly. A wastewater treatment plant was, nevertheless, not constructed in Turku, although the first ones had been built in Helsinki in 1910.⁷¹ It is not known where the war industries placed their solid wastes, but probably somewhere near the harbor area.

After the First World War and in the 1920s river pollution was largely ignored in the press because the lack of clean drinking water became an even more alarming issue in the city. The city waterworks had used groundwater ever since its creation in 1903. Because of excessive use and many consecutive dry summers, the water table had descended alarmingly. That forced the city waterworks to start using river water in 1923. Many found the idea of drinking muddy river water most unpleasant and complained about the taste and smell of the water for years. The 1930s again witnessed a great rise in debate concerning water pollution. By 1931, the comments had reached such a level that authorities were compelled to order a plan for a wastewater treatment plant. Because of high costs and the delay caused by the Second World War, however, the plant was not realized for decades. Water pollution nevertheless remained in the headlines through the 1930s (and the river experienced total oxygen depletion in 1936).⁷² Although pollution was strongly criticized, the economically important factories—or their influential owners—were never directly blamed for pollution, although their impact must have been evident to everybody.

During the Winter and Continuation wars, no articles were published on water pollution. In 1941, just a couple of weeks before the onset of the Continuation War, a long article reported on the new wastewater purifying technology that might be used in Turku. After this, water pollution was never mentioned from 1942 to 1947, although by the late 1940s the situation was practically on the verge of catastrophe. Newspapers began to write about water pollution again only because local residents arranged a meeting to discuss river pollution in 1948. That meeting was also the first time any factory was accused by name.⁷³ In 1949, three articles referring to river pollution were published. In 1950, the authorities were trying to convince the public that the "self-purifying capacity" of the river would suffice and that dredging the riverbed would be enough. But that same year officials finally had to acknowledge the situation and start taking action.⁷⁴

The Second World War and the subsequent politically unstable years fundamentally changed the way people experienced and used their environment. The environmental values that had been strongly present in the interwar newspapers vanished almost completely during the Continuation War and did not return for years after the war ended. The Second World War did not cause any major setbacks for industry in Turku, and immediately after the war industry experienced a great boom. Because Finland had to pay heavy war reparations to the Soviet Union, shipyards and the metal industry in particular increased production.⁷⁵ These also created great quantities of wastes, which were dumped in the river or piled around the urban fringes. Before the Second World War, most wastes—domestic and industrial—had been taken to the main landfill area near the city. Open landfills had attracted negative publicity in the 1920s and 1930s and for the most part had been cleaned up. The system changed dramatically during the war. The amount of waste increased a great deal when bombing destroyed buildings and warehouses. Because the official landfill site had been situated near a hospital, officials decided in 1943 to move the landfill away from the city.⁷⁶ This decision soon proved to be a mistake and environmentally it marked the beginning of worse times.

Although some of the solid waste (mainly organic material) was still carried to the official city landfill, most was probably not. Because of the acute lack of trucks, workers, and fuel, refuse was dumped in the nearest possible place; the fields around the harbor, for example, became a large dumping area. Hazardous wastes were treated like any other waste, and were placed in ordinary landfill sites. As a result, the city and especially the fringe areas were soon full of illicit landfills and the control of these sites was practically non-existent; only a few major landfills were guarded. In the late 1940s and 1950s, the number of landfills increased rapidly and the city's fringe areas were dotted with the once-forgotten landfills used by factories and other enterprises. Abandoned potato fields and other empty areas were seen as wastelands which could be used freely for waste dumping.⁷⁷ Once this started it was not easy to stop. The situation was worsened by the amount of crime during and after the Continuation War. The police and other officials had more pressing things to do than supervise waste management.⁷⁸ Some of these illegal landfills still were being used in the 1960s, when control again started to tighten. After the war the situation most likely had been believed to be only temporary, but instead it became a new standard that existed for decades. Since some of these sites have now been developed as homesites, they still pose a health risk to city dwellers.⁷⁹

The situation might have been corrected had the newspapers criticized it. They did not. Throughout the interwar period, illegal waste dumps outside the city center attracted lots of media attention, just as river pollution did. Wartime censorship existed from October 1939 to October 1947, in large part to keep the people united and their spirits up. A very small percentage of articles were actually censored, but this was only because the editors practiced self-censorship so well.⁸⁰ In 1943, it was considered to be big news when the main landfill site was moved further away from the city. By contrast, from 1945 to 1949, landfills—legal or illegal—were never even mentioned in the newspaper, even though new landfills were being put into use everywhere just outside the city center.

Some of the worst polluters were factories whose products were needed for paying the war indemnities. It is quite unthinkable that the newspapers would have criticized them, especially since wartime censorship was in effect until 1947. Local residents at first did not oppose the landfills either because it was not customary at the time and many took advantage of the landfills to scavenge valuable metal or other items. After the war the fringe areas possibly were so full of smaller dumps and the remnants of destroyed houses that nobody paid much attention to a few more. It was still a common practice to bury wastes in the ground. Indeed, a large area in the southwestern part of the city was leveled using industrial wastes as fill material.⁸¹ At the time, this was not considered to be harmful in any way. Although the problems caused by landfills were already serious in the 1950s, the situation was seldom treated as big news.⁸² This remained the case until the late 1960s, when the main landfill area started to cause serious environmental problems.⁸³

Conclusions

IT IS OFTEN SAID that only after the Second World War did people gradually awaken to the environmental problems around them. Our study suggests that the opposite was true. Harsh wartime conditions forced people to ignore or even hide environmental problems they once had expressed concern about. It took one or even two decades before people could again afford to take the environment into consideration.

Both world wars had a profound influence on the urban environment. Although these wars were very different, their environmental effects in Finland were mostly negative. The First World War brought about a rise of urban farming and animal husbandry that decreased the hygiene standard in and around the city and led to a worsening vermin and pest problem. Cleaning up the city, which had begun before the war, was delayed for almost a decade. A booming war industry increased production enormously but polluted the river badly. Interestingly, the First World War did not seem to have a decisive or long-lasting effect on the volume of environmental debate in the press (see Table 1). The Second World War caused much more profound and negative changes. Urban agriculture ruined the city's hygiene, booming industry polluted the river, and censorship prevented debate on environmental issues. Moreover, human suffering and the traumatic experiences of war also had a long-lasting impact on environmental attitudes.

Unlike the First World War, the Second World War considerably changed of urban life. A large portion of city dwellers had to leave the city and either go to the front or move to the countryside. Those who stayed had to adjust to dramatically changing circumstances and accept new responsibilities. When fear and day-to-day survival dominated life, there was no time for environmental activism anymore, and after the war the topic remained all but forgotten for years. Industrial production became the most essential national concern and factories were free to pollute the environment practically without surveillance or sanctions. City dwellers accustomed to the changed circumstances of war did not protest. For years most people focused on finding food, clothes, and other everyday necessities. Men returning home had their own problems and traumas to deal with and a wave of crime swept the nation. People learned to keep things confidential and not to question the authorities—to stay out of trouble. Children were taught to keep things to themselves. Complaints about the environment would have been regarded as trivial when people were facing much more immediate challenges. According to one study, this war-inspired atmosphere strongly affected people for decades.⁸⁴

The Second World War also seems to have profoundly changed what newspaper editors thought was worth printing. Animal rights or the environment clearly did not belong to this category. While the war lasted, newspapers often avoided publishing negative articles because of censorship, and sought instead to keep up the spirits of civilians. Open debate was not possible and the changed atmosphere radically affected the way news was reported. After the war, there was much discontent with the outcome of the long and exhausting conflict. Coverage of environmental problems such as pollution did not immediately return to the newspapers, although these problems were exacerbated by rapid industrial growth. The time to solve environmental problems would come later. Not until the late 1940s did environmental issues again slowly start to interest newspapers and become a part of public debate. As has been shown in many studies, public environmental debate nevertheless remained slight through the 1950s and only emerged again in the 1960s and 1970s.⁸⁵ Wars are a relevant part of twentieth century environmental history. This article is an attempt to understand some of the profound and complex ways the world wars affected one urban environment. "It's war and everyone can do as they please!" said a group of boys in 1943 to a garden owner when caught stealing her apples.⁸⁶ This may well reflect the prevailing environmental and moral attitudes of the time. It also seems to depict the mentality of the bigger enterprises that opened their own landfills around the city or funneled their untreated wastes to the river. The 1940s could be considered one of the crucial decades in twentieth-century Finnish environmental history. The attitudes of wartime, which were first believed to be only temporary, turned out to be long-lasting. Wartime and post-war neglect of the environment generated the myth that the environment did not interest people before the 1960s. In reality, the war interrupted an increase in environmental awareness that had started decades before and was well on its way in the 1930s. It required a completely new generation to resurrect that interest in the environment.

Rauno Lahtinen (M.A. in ethnology) is a researcher at the University of Turku, Finland, and is currently finishing his doctoral thesis in the Department of Cultural History. The thesis deals with urban environmental problems and environmental attitudes in Finland in the first half of the twentieth century. Timo Vuorisalo (Ph.D. in ecological zoology) has been a lecturer of environmental science at the University of Turku since 1992. He has written several papers on evolutionary ecology and urban ecology.

Notes

The authors wish to thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive criticism and encouragement, and especially Adam Rome for his valuable suggestions. The research on this essay was supported by grants from the Maj and Tor Nessling Foundation and the Turku University Foundation.

^1. See, for example, Afghanistan, Post-Conflict Environmental Assessment Nairobi: United Nations Environment Programme, 2003), 28–47. Unlike many studies, the UN reports pay a lot of attention to the urban environment.

^2. William M. Tsutsui: "Landscapes in the Dark Valley: Toward an Environmental History of Wartime Japan," Environmental History 8 (April 2003), 294–311; Paul Fussell, Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), ix.

^3. Simo Laakkonen, Vesiensuojelun synty. Helsingin ja sen merialueen ympäristöhistoriaa 1878–1928 (Helsinki: Gaudeamus, 2001); Petri Juuti, Kaupunki ja vesi. Tampereen vesihuollon ympäristöhistoria 1835–1921 (Pieksämäki: KehräMedia Oy, 2001).

^4. Liisa Nummelin, "Maatalous kaupungissa" (Master's thesis, Department of Ethnology, University of Turku, 1988); Sami Tantarimäki, "Over the Depressions by the Aid of Garden Produce: Supplies of Food in Finland, 1917–1950," Publicationes Instituti Geographici Universitatis Turkuensis 164 (2001): 193–205.

^5. Silvo Hietanen, "Suomi syksyllä 1944," in Sodasta rauhaan, ed. Jarl Kronlund (Helsinki: Suomen sotahistorian komissio, 1995), 109; Kari Virolainen, Elinikäinen taakka. Ikääntyneiden lappilaisten muistot vuorovaikutussuhteistaan jatkosodan ajan Saksan armeijan sotilaisiin ja neuvostoliittolaisiin sotavankeihin (Rovaniemi: Lapin yliopisto 1999), 16. Virolainen has studied how the War of Lapland, 1944–1945, affected the local residents.

^6. For figures 1 and 2 we counted a wide range of environmental articles, although some issues, for example urban biodiversity, are only briefly mentioned in this paper. For the study we selected the newspapers with the biggest circulation in Turku. They were Aura (1890–1896), Uusi Aura (1897–1917) and Turun Sanomat (1918–1950). We examined all issues and all sections of these newspapers; only advertisements were left outside the study.

^7. See, for example Bent Jensen, The Environmental Debate in the Danish Press from 1870s to 1970s (Copenhagen: The Rockwool Foundation Research Unit, 2000), 15–21; Laakkonen, Vesiensuojelun synty, 177–84. Philip Lowe and Jane Goyder have identified four periods when concern for the environment has been particularly evident: the 1890s, 1920s, late 1950s, and 1970s. See Philip Lowe and Jane Goyder, Environmental Groups in Politics (London: Allen & Unwin, 1983), 16–17. In addition, see Robert Garner, Environmental Politics (London: Prentice Hall, 1996), 62–64.

^8. Pertti Suhonen, Mediat, me ja ympäristö (Helsinki: Hanki ja jää, 1994), 44–58.

^9. Ulla Ekman-Salokangas and Raimo Salokangas, "Turun Sanomat" and "Uusi Aura" in Suomen lehdistön historia, osa 7, ed. Ulla Ekman-Salokangas, Eeva-Liisa Aalto and Raimo Salokangas (Kuopio: Kustannuskiila, 1988), 141–43, 189–91.

^10. Laakkonen, Vesiensuojelun synty, 27–28. We studied some random samples of the local socialist newspaper Sosialisti and found little environmental news.

^11. About the changing meaning of the environment, environmental concern, and attitudes see, for example, Riley E. Dunlap and Robert Emmet Jones, "Environmental Concern: Conceptual and Measurement Issues," in Handbook of Environmental Sociology, ed. Riley E. Dunlap and William Michelson (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2002), 482–520.

^12. Eino Jutikkala, Turun kaupungin historia 1856–1917 (Turku: Turun Kirjapaino ja Sanomalehti OY, 1957), 130, 149–50.

^13. Sinikka Uusitalo, Turku keväällä 1918 (Turku: Turun Historiallinen Yhdistys, 1971), 9, 41.

^14. Ibid., 88–93.

^15. Laakkonen, Vesiensuojelun synty, 177–84; Jensen, Environmental Debate, 15–21.

^16. Reino Lento, Sellaista oli elämä vuosisadan vaihteen Turussa (Juva: WSOY , 1979), 191; Jussi Kuusanmäki,"Ensimmäisen maailmansodan lehtisensuuri," in Sensuuri ja sananvapaus Suomessa, ed. Pirkko Leino-Kaukiainen (Helsinki: Suomen sanomalehdistön historia–projekti, 1980), 85–121.

^17. Timo Vuorisalo, et al., "Urban Development from an Avian Perspective: Causes of Hooded Crow Urbanisation in two Finnish Cities," Landscape and Urban Planning 62 (2002): 74; Veikko Laakso, Turun kaupungin historia 1918–1970 (Turku: Turun kaupunki 1980), 405–06.

^18. Sinikka Uusitalo, Turun kaupungin historia 1918–1970, (Turku: Turun kaupunki 1982), 113–14. The material damage caused by bombing and reconstruction work have been among the most thoroughly studied research subjects of the 1940s. See, for example, Laakso, Turun kaupungin historia, 152–78; and Satu Saikko, "Taisteleva satama," in Turun sataman historia, ed. Jussi T. Lappalainen (Turku: Turun satama, 1999), 167–86.

^19. Martti Piltz, "Liikenne sota-aikana," in Suomi 85, Itsenäisyyden puolustajat. osa 2: Kotirintamalla, ed. Lauri Haataja, et al. (Porvoo: Weilin+Göös Oy, 2002), 148–55; Uusitalo, Turun kaupungin historia, 114.

^20. S. Choplowe, "Havana's Popular Gardens: Sustainable Prospects for Urban Agriculture," The Environmentalist 18 (1998): 47.

^21. On animals and animal protection in Turku, see Mikko Rasila, Turun Eläinsuojeluyhdistys 1871–1971 (Turku: Turun Eläinsuojeluyhdistys, 1971); Jutikkala, Turun kaupungin historia, 43, 571–73; Jukka Eerilä, Port Arthur–turkulainen työväenkaupunginosa 1900–1920 (Turku: Turun kaupungin historiallinen museo, 1974), 145–50.

^22. Visa Heinonen, "Mainonta ja uudet kulutustavarat," in Suomen kulttuurihistoria 3, ed. Anja Kervanto Nevanlinna and Laura Kolbe (Helsinki: Tammi, 2003), 292–93.

^23. Uusi Aura, 14 May 1916.

^24. Uusi Aura, 9, 15, 17, 27 May 1917; Ilkka Seppinen, Taloudellinen puolustusneuvosto ja puolustustaloudellinen suunnittelukunta huoltovarmuuden kehittäjänä 1929–1955–1995 (Helsinki: Puolustustaloudellinen suunnittelukunta, 1996), 9–10; Reino Lento, Elintarvikepulasta Suomessa (Turku: Turun yliopiston taloustieteen laitos, 1967), 15.

^25. Uusi Aura, 13 June 1918.

^26. See, for example, Uusi Aura, 6, 10 July 1918, 15 September 1918.

^27. Laakso, Turun kaupungin historia, 60–63.

^28. Annual Reports of the City of Turku (Turun kaupungin kunnalliskertomukset) [hereafter, ARCT], 1916: 1, 121–32; Jutikkala, Turun kaupungin historia, 49–50.

^29. Uusi Aura, 29 November 1917.

^30. Uusi Aura, 8 August 1916; Mirja-Riitta Siivonen, Pirkko Salonen and Tuija Kuchka, Siirtolapuutarha—kaupunkilaisten paratiisi (Helsinki: Tammi, 1999), 42–43.

^31. Tantarimäki, "Over the Depressions," 194–97. Interview no. 15. For this research we interviewed thirty-seven people in September and October 2002 on the history of the urban environment, waste disposal, and old landfills in Turku. The interviewed people were forty to ninety-six years old. They answered our query published in a local newspaper (Turun Sanomat, 12 September, 2002) concerning old waste management customs. Because most did not want their names published, the interviews are numbered from 1 to 37. Transcripts are in the possession of the authors.

^32. Ilkka Seppinen, "Talvisodan talous," in Haataja, et al., eds., Suomi 85, 28–37.

^33. Erkki Pihkala,"Kansanhuollon aikaan," in Haataja, et al., eds., Suomi 85, 84–99; Piltz, "Liikenne sota-aikana," 149.

^34. Tantarimäki, "Over the Depressions," 202.

^35. Anni Polva, Elettiin kotirintamalla (Hämeenlinna: Karisto, 1995), 40; Interview no. 35.

^36. Turun Sanomat, 22 October 1948 and 5 May 1949.

^37. Edmund Russell, War and Nature: Fighting Humans and Insects with Chemicals from World War I to Silent Spring (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 165–83.

^38. Turun Sanomat, 18 July 1946, 12 April 1947, 5 December 1948, and 27 April 1950.

^39. Mari Jäppilä, "Operaatio rikkaruoho," in Horjutettu tasapaino ja kadotettu harmonia– maaseutuyhteisö, ympäristö ja muutos, ed. Kimmo Jalonen (Turku: Turun yliopisto, 2000), 155–78; Turun Sanomat, 28 June 1945.

^40. Pihkala, "Kansanhuollon aikaan," 87, 96.

^41. Interview no. 15.

^42. Turun Sanomat, 30 October 1943.

^43. Turun Sanomat, 25 November 1920, 22 February 1941, 28 February 1942, and 23 May 1943.

^44. Turun Sanomat, 18 April 1945; Interviews nos. 15 and 35.

^45.Turun Sanomat, 29 September 1945; Nummelin, "Maatalous kaupungissa," 130. The official number of sheep in the city of Pori grew from 180 in 1941 to 3,288 in 1945.

^46.Turun Sanomat, 3 June 1943.

^47. Nummelin, "Maatalous kaupungissa," 131.

^48. Turun Sanomat, 30 October 1943, and 24 January 1946.

^49. ARCT (1947), 6: 5 and ARCT (1950), 6: 5.

^50. See, for example, Turun Sanomat, 19, 20 April 1950 a report that the lack of hygiene in Finnish cities was appalling and in Turku especially illicit waste dumps had become problems.

^51. ARCT (1935–1950); Laakso, Turun kaupungin historia, 33.

^52. ARCT: Kansanhuoltolautakunta; viljelijöitä ja karjanhaltijoita koskevat luettelot 1944–49. See, for example, Turun Sanomat, 26 October 1946, 26 February 1949, and 22 October 1950.

^53. Tsutsui, "Landscapes in the Dark Valley," 303.

^54. On traffic conditions in wartime Turku, see Marita Söderstöm, Ratatieosakeyhtiöstä keltaiseen vaaraan. Sata vuotta Turun joukkoliikennettä (Turku: Turun maakuntamuseo, 1990), 103–6; and Aake Jermo, Kun kansa eli kortilla (Helsinki: Otava, 1974), 44, 228–38.

^55. Laakso, Turun kaupungin historia, 48–49.

^56. Turun Sanomat, 7 June 1918.

^57. See, for example, Turun Sanomat, 24 January 1945, 25 February 1945, 8 May 1945, 27 December 1945, and 13 March 1947; Pihkala, "Kansanhuollon aikaan," 97.

^58. See, for example, ARCT (1929): 6–7; ARCT (1939): 6, 7; Turun Sanomat, 11 August 1929, and 5 May 1936.

^59. Interviews nos. 3 and 15; Turun Sanomat, 19 January 1941.

^60. Risto Jaakkola, "Rikollisuus," in Haataja, et al., eds., Suomi 85, 194–99.

^61.Turun Sanomat, 10, 23, and 28 May 1942, 11 April 1943, 22 January 1944, and 19 April 1944.

^62.Turun Sanomat, 28 May 1942, 15 January 1948, and 24 March 1948.

^63. Heikki Lindroos, "Haloilla lämpiävä maa," in Haataja, et al., eds., Suomi 85, 144–47.

^64. Unto Lahtonen, Halkometsästä kaukolämpöön (Uusikaupunki: Kiinteistönhoidon Edistämissäätiö rs., 1997), 32.

^65. See, for example, Turun Sanomat, 8 January 1944, and 10 January 1946; Lindroos, "Haloilla lämpiävä maa," 147; Erkki Lähde, Esko Jalkanen, Suomalaisen metsä. Tehotaloudesta luonnonläheiseen hoitoon (Juva: WSOY , 1987), 46–47.

^66. Jari Kosma, "Suomen automarkkinat 1920-luvulla," in Sata lasissa, ed. Ismo Vähäkangas (Turku: Turun Historiallinen Yhdistys 2000), 72–73.

^67. Piltz, "Liikenne sota-aikana," 151–52; Jermo, Kun kansa eli kortilla, 228–38.

^68. Turun Sanomat, 19 December 1945.

^69. Rauno Lahtinen and Timo Vuorisalo, "Sewers, Wastewater and Newspapers: The Early Environmental Debate on Water Pollution in Turku, Finland, 1887–1934," Scandinavian Economic History Review 1 (2004): 34–51.

^70. Jutikkala, Turun kaupungin historia, 147–50.

^71. Laakkonen, Vesiensuojelun synty, 184–85.

^72. See, for example, Turun Sanomat, 19 August 1921, 21 March 1923, 6 July 1927, 1 July 1931, 14 May 1932, 19 March 1934, and 22 September 1936.

^73. Turun Sanomat, 23 May 1948.

^74. Jussi Vallin, "Turun viemärilaitoksen historia jätevesipuhdistamon täydelliseen käyttöönottoon," in Turkulaisen veden pitkä matka Halisten koskelta Turun keskuspuhdistamolle. Turun vesilaitoksen juhlakirja, ed. Marko Stenroos, Veli-Pekka Toropainen, and Jussi Vallin (Turku: Turun vesilaitos, 1998), 176; Turun Sanomat, 10 September 1949, 26 October 1949, and 5 November 1949.

^75. Laakso, Turun kaupungin historia, 406.

^76. Turun Sanomat, 30 September 1942 and 14 January 1943.

^77. Interviews no. 3, 18, 31, and 35. In Turun Sanomat, 13 January 1953, city officials admit that in the past ten years the city had became full of private, illicit landfills.

^78. Jaakkola, "Rikollisuus," 194–99.

^79. Rauno Lahtinen, "Vanhoja kaatopaikka-alueita löytyy Turustakin," Turun Sanomat, 3 October 2003.

^80. Alpo Rusi, Lehdistösensuuri jatkosodassa (Helsinki: Suomen historiallinen seura, 1982), 17–27; Touko Perko, "Viime sotiemme sensuuri," in Sensuuri ja sananvapaus Suomessa, ed. Pirkko Leino-Kaukiainen (Helsinki: Suomen sanomalehdistön historia– projekti, 1980), 132–46.

^81. Interview no. 9.

^82. Turun Sanomat, 13 January 1953, is an exception. Problems in the city's main landfill appeared on the front page.

^83. Turun Sanomat, 5 September 1969 and 18 September 1969.

^84. Virolainen, Elinikäinen taakka, 172–95; Leena Ormio and Anja Porio, Sotaan loppui lapsuus (Helsinki: Kirjapaja, 2001), 42–46.

^85. Suhonen, Mediat, me ja ympäristö, 84–86; Ilmo Massa, Toinen ympäristötiede. Kirjoituksia yhteiskuntatieteellisestä ympäristötutkimuksesta (Helsinki: Gaudeamus 1998), 41–45; Robert Gottlieb, Forcing the Spring: The Transformation of the American Environmental Movement (Washington, D.C.: Island Press 1993), 81–114; Samuel P. Hays, "From Conservation to Environment. Environmental Politics in the United States Since World War II," in Out of the Woods: Essays in Environmental History, ed. Char Miller and Hal Rothman (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press 1997), 114–18.

^86. Turun Sanomat, 18 August 1943.

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