I’ve been studying Victorian Era culture for so long but I’ve only recently come across dust yards – partly due to industry (factory smoke close to living quarters) and due to a lack of a government-level organisation of waste, normal people would collect ‘dust’ to be sorted through to sell as manure or to pawn elsewhere, cleaning the streets somewhat as a result, but dumping everything into a dedicated place. Basically a precursor to our modern waste collection system. I’m not surprised that dust collection would have been lucrative….Victorian London was one hell of a dusty place, with blankets upon blankets of tiny charcoal (!!) particles. Who wouldn’t want to make bank of that?