Isso pode ser " Pessoas magras da Rua Leptophlebo "por R. A. Lafferty , originalmente coletado em Orbit 16 , uma antologia de ficção científica curta histórias.
Um cavalheiro chamado Canute vai visitar uma comunidade muito estranha de agiotas.
"How is the street kept so clean and swept?" Canute asked. "Brooms with both astatic and static bristles are the secret," Effie told him. "Organic dust clings to the static bristles, and the non-organic dust is swept clean into gathering vessels by the astatic bristles. Then we pass the brushes over degaussing jets that release the organic particles, and we make soup from them. And the non-organic dust is separated into flammable and inflammable piles."
"They mean the same thing," Canute said.
"Not on Leptophlebo Street they don't," Effie insisted. "So we make briquettes to burn as fuel out of the one sort. And we make bricks and flagstones and face-stones for buildings out of the other sort. So we have our soup and our fuel and our bricks, and we keep the street clean all the time."