From The Scrapheap

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 220, 17 September 1938, Page 2 (Supplement)

From The Scrapheap

By--Margaret Barclay

IN some of the old European countries one cannot fail to observe how little waste is permitted.

The contents of rubbish tins collected from shops, factories and houses are not immediately destroyed, but are examined for such things as old clothes and rags, paper, broken glass, scrap iron of all kinds and even empty tins, all of which are used again. Food waste is put into suitable container* and sent to the farms for feeding pigs and fowls. Clothing is put through various processes of disinfection and cleaning before being shredded and made into shoddy. When this is manufactured into blankets, ovtftcdat» and wearing 4p* parol, it gives quite good wear and is cheap. All paper?, including newspapers and cardboard boxes, are cleaned and re-

pulped; afterwards seeing further life as brown wrapping paper, bags, cardboard, etc.

Xo scrap iron is wasted; broken machinery, old rusty saucepans, old tools and such like, that one would imagine had no further use, are put in the melting pot, and then made into iron or steel tools and cutlery of every description. Empty tins are thoroughly cleaned, the solder melted off and collected, and the tin manufactured into kitchen utensils and gaily painted toys. Broken glass of every kind is again melted, and reappears as bottles, dishes and the hundred and one glass articles in everyday use.

At an exhibition held at Dusseldorf last year, all these processes were shown and explained in detail, step by step, by experienced mechanics, to c*owds of people, both young and old. who showed a lively intelligent interest in tiiege practical lessons on thrift. ', i

Reconditioning' of waste products givee employment to thousands of workers, skilfed and unskilled, male and female, and helps to solve the unemployment problem in those countries.