BARRAGE BALLOONS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 05, Issue 73, 3 July 1942, Page 5

BARRAGE BALLOONS

BECOME COVERS FOR TANKS SHIPPED OVERSEAS The straw in the 1 thousands of palliasses on which the British Army sleeps is now regularly turned into paper as fresh straw takes its place. In the old days the straw would just be burned. To-day it is laid cut to air thoroughly, then packed up in bales and sent off to the paper mills. Jute from tattered sand bags goes on from the Army Salvage depots to the paper makers too. There is not much that the depots do not collect. Every week one of them alone handles 500 tons of iron, stee?l, aluminium and tin. It sorts out empty bottles and sends tlicm back to the brewers, the distillers and the wine merchants. Thousands of old batteries are returned to the makers that the carbon may be reclaimed. Old barrage balloons become 1 strips of rubber sheeting made into Avatertight covers for tanks shipped overseas. Cotton reels sent in by the Women's Voluntary Services and the Girl Guides are used by the Royal Engineers for cable rests in laying temporary telephone and telegraph lines. More than 15.000 of tliem have come along. Last year this one depot collected 859 tons of Army paper for salvage and sold it at £5 a ton: in afll the Army got £100,000 for its salvage' ira» a year and passed the money on to war funds.