THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, JULY 17, 1909. MONEY IN "WASTE."

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9545, 17 July 1909, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, JULY 17, 1909. MONEY IN "WASTE."

One of the revelations that are almost daily made by the partnership of 3cience and industrialism as the panorama of expanding civilisation unrolls discloses the utility 'vf things that, as a recent writer in the "Seientfiic American" remarks, had hitherto been thought "useless stuff, merely fit to be trod under the feet as so much dirt." Or regarded as lumber getting rid of which was itself a difficulty, it might be added. In Australasia, though perhaps less keenly than in the rest of the industrial world, we are realising this, for how long is it since we thought it guod business to boil sheep down, discarding all those so-called byproducts which now form the essential basis of so many industries? The writer already mentioned reminds the frugal that old tins are melted down to make, buttons, and, among other things, toys for children; that old boots and goloshes and j Scraps of leather are used in various manufactures; that no bottle or ) piece of glass should be thrown away because "mixed with certain kinds of earth and- sand it makes an excellent artificail stone for building purposes"; that street sweepings are worth gathering; and that the parings the farrier shaves off the horse's hoof make "a most .valuable dye when mixed with certain chemicals and metal scraps." The cyanide of potassium that enables gold to be extracted from ore and tailings which in the past it would never have paid to treat, is largely made out of what was long libelled as rubbish. The . great and varied uses of refuse tar in the constitution of medicines perfumes, and other utilities have become common knowledge, and conspicuously exemplify the alchemy of modern industrialism. But much more underestimated things than tar have thqir money-uses. Smoke, for instance. Long ago English factory proprietors, the smoke from whose chimneys had given the neighbouring country a desolated appearanoe, hit upon ways of trapping it and wresting from it the valuable elements that were escaping with it. American experience. it appears, shows that the smoke from a hunderd cords of wood will yield six tons of acetate of lime, i besides twenty-five pounds of tar. ■ Or, if treated another way, it will : give 200 gallons of spirit suitable for ; lighting, heating, and motive power. ; Some time ago it was reported that I wood was being burned simply for !

the alcohol to be extracted from it, and since then the cable has given particulars of the surreptitious use of wood alcohol for human consumption in Amercia. That sthe great American steei and iron mahufacturers should discover value ih "waste" under the stimulus of competition and ingenuity was only to be expected, even if the lesson that c»al gave a greater heat after being once thoroughly burned could have been ignored as a "pointer," They have found that the slag they used to be glad to get rid of will make glass, paving blocks, bricks, and mortar. They have also seen ways of utilising escaping gas, which, as it rises from the smelters is conveyed back under the engines and ignited. It is estimated that this process will bring the cost of smelting down. 50 per cent. Sawdust provides another instance of the money there is in "waste." According to the different timbers from which it is obtained sawdust yields different commodities, all of commercial value. From some alcohol can be obtained, from others sugar. Its utilisation for various j purposes is said to employ five hundred sawdust merchants in New York city alone. The meat industry's prolificness in "by-products" is fairly well known in this country. In America and France, where economy goes further, four hundred different articles are calculated to be got from the carcase of one bullock by one process and another. And what a curious variety of requirements this four hundred out of one meets, since it provides food and its assistant digestive medicines, brushes and combs, boots, soap, buttons, fiddle-strings, gelatine, chesspieces, glycerine, and oil among its variegated catalogue of benefits. Nothing dies, but everything used goes to ■create. The principle suggests large and grim reflections, but if%e cut it down to its industrial application we can see how much that 13 beneficial it will mean when mankind has learned that in it 3 proper lexicon there is no such word as waste, and that the uses of everything in the three kingdoms are as inexhaustible as hurr.anly measured time.