OLD RAGS HELP BOMBERS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 October 1942, Page 3

OLD RAGS HELP BOMBERS

SALVAGED RUBBISH BECOMES MAPS AND BLANKETS.

Britain’s old rags, going into the factories at the rate of hundreds of tons a day ,are coming out in the form of Army blankets, surgical dressings, Air Force maps, and Navy charts. Even old rope and string reappears as camouflage netting. One place alone is converting old clothes, sacking, carpets and rag scraps to the tune of 250 tons a week. A cutting machine tears tw,o tons of them up an hour. The shreds are shot into a huge water tank where they are beaten to pulp at the rate of 50cwt. an hour. This muddy mass, pressed and dried, becomes felt for padding the seats of tanks and transport lorries, for packing aircraft for shipment, and for protecting armoured cars from vibration. And old rags are also being turned into the thousands of the wipers which munition workers need for taking the grease from shells before they are varnished, for keeping aero engines in order, and for varnishing aeroplane propellers. If the rags be of wool they become uniforms, blankets, cloth for - “utility” suits and dresses.