In Britain the problem of rubble blocking London streets became acute in September 1940, resulting in the appointment of Warren Fisher as a Special Commissioner to "organise the clearance and salvage of debris and to facilitate the work of the authorities responsible for the restoration of roads and public utility services". Fisher employed a variety of personnel including unemployed civilians, the Pioneer Corps and Royal Engineers, initially with basic tools and even wicker baskets until more vehicles were obtained. Military personnel (some 13,500 in 1940) were steadily replaced by civilian workers (25,000 at their height in June 1941). Private property, even as rubble, remained the property of the owner until a March 1941 modification to the War Damage Act authorised clearance workers to "enter and clear any building damaged by enemy action to clear the site and salvage materials".

Where possible intact bricks, tiles etc. were recycled; at one stage 700,000 bricks were being recovered each week for use in reconstruction or building new blast walls and shelters. Unusable timber etc. was burned, other worthless debris were dumped. The northern end of Regent's Park was (and remains) raised by several feet with Blitz rubble, much was also taken to the Leystone Marshes to form parkland. Crushed debris could be used as hardcore for construction work, especially the massive airfield building programme from 1942 as the USAAF joined the Combined Bomber Offensive; thousands of Allied bombers took off from airfields partly built from Blitz rubble as they visited even greater destruction on German cities. Away from London, debris from the bombing of Liverpool and Bootle was taken up the coast to Sefton and used as sea defences; there was little processing of the rubble, some recognisable parts of buildings remain as documented by photographer Tom Fairclough in [Collateral] (http://coast.foliohd.com/collateral#untitled-1jpg-1) in 2010, and an archaeology student at Durham University is currently running a project to explore the rubble on Crosby beach ( https://twitter.com/ArchaeoBeach ). In Bristol rubble was used as ballast for ships returning to America after bringing supplies in; in New York that ballast then became [landfill for FDR Drive between 23rd and 34th Street] (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/nyregion/28fyi.html).

Book-wise, specifically focused on London there's Robin Woolven's chapter "Between Deconstruction and Reconstruction: London's Debris Clearance and Repair Organisation 1939-1945" from The Blitz and its Legacy: Wartime Destruction to Post-War Reconstruction, ed. Clapson & Larkham. More generally, Clapson has recently published The Blitz Companion: Aerial Warfare, Civilians and the City since 1911 (available free in electronic formats) with a broader chapter on worldwide reconstruction that's a useful starting point for other countries.