WEALTH AND WASTE.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 July 1917, Page 6

WEALTH AND WASTE.

MILLIONS MADE FROM REFUSE. Rubbish heaps and waste have provided the world with wealth in greater measure than the richest gold mines ever known (remarks an English paper). Tlio average person may be apt to regard the above statement more or less sceptically. Nevertheless, it can truthfully bo said that when any article ceases to he of value for one thing it ran be always concerted into some use for another.

Every day millions of money arc extracted from waste. The refuse and garbage of our towns are turned to good account. After the extraction of the grease by special process, the residue dried and powdered makes a valuable fertiliser, which is sold to fanners at enormous profit. In London alone it is estimated that over a million tons of refuse are carted away every year.

Breadcrumbs are swept off tables and thrown to tho sparrows or into the dustbins. If every family in London 'Wastes only an ounce of crust and crumbs a week, tho total amounts to 2..")00 211) loaves, each costing fid. or £O2 10s a week. For a year the waste would represent over 110 tons of broad! Tho revenue from the Bradford Corporation's grease facton amounts to liearlv £50,000 per annum. This sum represents what other people have thrown away. No loss than 120 tons a week of valuable grease are extracted from tho waste products in the 'Wool industry. Properly organised, every particle of house waste could be turned into money, and through money into usefulness. Hie City of Glasgow makes an income of | £IO,OOO a year from fertilisers made from city waste.

Tho United States imports £500,000 worth of waste rags annually, just-to make writing paper. Unti\ recently 1.400.000 tons of flax were burned or allowed to go to waste in the States every year, but now a process has been discovered whereby tho flax can be used for making paper, with a consequent saving of nearly a million pounds pc-r annum.

It is, difficult, to credit that table jellv has actually been extracted from old boots and whisky derived from refuse which, converted into glucose, is turned into spirit by a patent, still. If hy any chance you should happen to be admiring some yerv fine carved marble, it would not strike you that the so-called marble might easily be sawdust. Wonderful imitations of valuable woods and marbles have been made from sawdust, and oven experts have boon deceived nt fiv-' si"ht. Spirit, too can he made from sawdust. The blood of animals gives albumen, an indispensable factor in many industries. From it most beautiful buttons and other articles of adornment aro made.

The toys one sees in shop windows aro frequently manufactured from decayed meat, fish, and fruit, whilst skim milk is sold as sizing for paper, ivory #nd horn.

The remaking of old clothes is one of the most prosperous industries in this country. Old suits are torn to pieces, the wool and the cotton being chemically separated. The wool is then washed, dried, and respun. and made into a spick and span tailor-made suit. Scrap leather is used for various purposes, including manure, the manufacture, of heels, glue, dolls, children's shoes, washers, etc. Sometimes the greases and tanning materials contained in the leather are extracted to be used again. Burnt leather is a material much in demand for use in the "hardening" of metals.