SALVAGING USEFUL MATERIALS

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 262, 4 August 1942, Page 4

SALVAGING USEFUL MATERIALS

The opinion appears to be growing that the time has come for the introduction of a more thorough and systematic scheme of salvaging waste materials. During the past two. years the people of this country have frequently been urged that it is the duty to save useful substances. In addition to these appeals, collections, to meet particular and temporary demands for rags, bottles, and the like, have been organized. Depots of various kinds have been set up here and there for the reception of such materials as metals and paper. Lately some additional impetus has been given to the campaign for the conservation of paper by the introduction of Regulations which make it an offence to dispose of this substance wastefully. But the thousands of private sources of waste material throughout the country have yet to be systematically tapped. By comparison with what is done in overseas countries, and in the light of our own rapidly-increasing need to practise the utmost thrift' in the use of many essential materials, some at least of our efforts seem inadequate. Presumably it is even more important today, than. it. was a year or so ago, to conserve non-ferrous metals. If this is so, the public may well wonder why the campaign for the collection of metals has not been intensified. Far from this being the case,, it bears every outward appearance of having slackened, lhe initial earnestness of those private citizens who conveyed scrap copper and brass, etc., to public bins and depots seems largely to have evaporated. In the case of rubber scrap, nothing has yet been dong in a really objective way to enlist the services of the mass of citizens in <t combing-out of waste, dhe Minister of Supply has said that it would be almost impossible to exaggerate the difficulty in which New Zealand is placed by reason of the rubber shortage.. Phis is a blunt warning, but warnings alone are not enough. Having been appraised of the position, the people await a full lead in meeting it. Drastic action has been taken to curtail the use of rubber tyres and other goods containing rubber, but the collection of used rubber has hardly begun. In nearly every household, on farms, and in office, buildings and factories odds and ends of useful rubber could be soited and bundled. This would be done as a matter of course by the great majority of people, provided a system of collection and utilization could be developed on a national scale.