RAKING OVER THE DUMP-HEAPS OF INDUSTRY.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3129, 7 August 1922, Page 8

RAKING OVER THE DUMP-HEAPS OF INDUSTRY.

(By James H. Collins.) Money! Money! Money! Gold. Gold pieces for a tanner. Ali Baba s cave, Aladdin’s lamp, wealth by the tens ot thousands—hundreds —millions —yea, billions! Wealth cast on a sort oi national dump heap, whore anybody may salvage it if ho lias the knowledge or the foresight or the selling ability, or can apply the particular knack to. the particular kind of neglected wealth involved. For there are many kinds of it. j.'mHH That proud boast ot the Chicago meat packer, for example—that he saves everything but the squeal of tho pig. Empty! The pig is turned into ham, bacon, sausage, lard, pocket-books, hair-brushes, digestive tablets, glue, fertiliser. The very water in which it is scalded and washed runs through a cunningly contrived system of traps tc catch every fragment of grease. \et when tho water finally runs away it carries wealth —chemicals in solution, like potash and nitrate, which we import from South America—-fifty to one hundred tons of them flowing out daily from every large packing plant, worth £4 or £5 a ton upwards —say, £50,090,000 to £100,000,000 yearly, the silent squeal of the pig. A ship came into a certain port with some chemicals consigned to an importer. On the way over the stuff had got wet. The importer had paid £IBOO duty to the Government. By refusing the shipment lie could get his money back. Tho foreign exporter would get compensation from an insurance company that brought the stuff, while tnc shipping company could take the mess out to sea and dump it overboard. Things got to this stage when a. stranger appeared and asked lor a sample of the damaged chemicals. Taking this away for analysis he returned a little later and offered to buy the stuff, and tackle the job of removing it from the ship’s hold. ‘Put through a renovating process this material was sold to tho importer who had originally bought it, who in turn scld it at a profit. The Government retained its duty, the steamship and insurance people'suffered only a nominal loss, and the man who did the renovating job made a profit too. In another case a lot of linseed oil in barrels got mixed up during a storm at sea with a lot of potash in bags. They wore so badly mixed, in fact, that the barrels were ground to sawdust, and the mingled oil and potash plastered tho hold oi the ship with a slimy noisome mess. Again liability was passed from importer to insurance people, and the mixture was about to ho dumped at sea when the same stranger made an offer for the lot. By a renovating process ho extracted a grade of potash higher than that originally shipped, arid a grade of linseed oil suitable for soap-making. Damaged chemicals have long been a source of loss and annoyance to steamship companies. They seem to have a way of getting mixed up more intricately than most kinds of cargo, and require export chemical treatment in the salvage. Neither steamship owners nor insurance companies have the technical knowledge or facilities, and the common way out of such a difficulty has been to dump tho apparently worthless stuff into the ocean. But at least one concern has now gone into tho business of buying such damaged chemicals and turning them into something saleable. The wide range ot chemicals and the many kinds of damage, such as mixture, wetting, freezing and the like, make each lot an individual problem. To prevent and cure mustard-gas burns soldiers in France were given an ointment known as sag paste. Lhe War Office had 9,000,000 tubes of it on hand' after the armistice, apparently waste material. A description of the stuff ’was published in chemical journals, with the outcome that a large soap manufacturer bought the lot. Ibe chief ingredient is lanolin, a high-grade wool tat, fine for soap-making after the medical ingredients are taken out; and the tubes are worth as much as 2s a pound, oven in these times. Almost every day John Bull s afterwar junk pile furnishes a good salvage story. There were 27.000.000 pounds of smokeless cannon powder, for instance —stuff that looks something like macaroni. Nobody seemed to be able to suggest a use for it. Cannon powder is unsuitable for blasting because its force is exerted upward, whereas powder should exert a downward force. An appeal was made to chemists and engineers through then publications. ‘‘Discover a useful Pinpose for this powder and reap a rich reward!” said John Bull. The lot was taken off his hands by a chemical company, which is converting it into a porous black blasting powder. And as explosives contain cellulose, nlneh is the basis of celluloid, artificial leather and like things, other uses may be found for it. Thus £20,000 was realised bv the Government on something that appeared not only worthless but likely to cost money to dump Arrangements had actually b (>t 'ii made for dump inn- 49.000.000 pounds o! apparently useless T.N.T. when somebody with the Aladdin s lamp of the right chemical trick turned up, nought the lot and transformed it into blasting powder, which has since done a world of road-huilding and forestry work. However, these war wastes may come only once in a generation, while waste like that of industrial liquors is going on cverv dav. The salvage of war material might yield a handsome profit, but when it is done it is doin'. the salvaging of values out ot the warm from a packing house, a paper-pulp mill, fish-oil plant or wool-scouring establishment, once begun, can go on as long as the industry lasts. In making paper pnln from wood Dy the sulphite process chips of spruce and like woods are cooked in sulphuioiia acid combined with fame and magnesia in digesters. About two cords ol wood are needed to mnae a ton m. pulp. The process takes out ol the nood everything except the cellulose hbu from which paper is made. The production of a ton ot P ul l leaves a ton of Honor. Tins liquor contains the spent chemicals, along with all the gum. pitch, resin, sugars and so on, in the wood; o0 per. cent o the weight of the dry wood is Iclt m the liquor. With the exception of iu;iD:ips - m 3 per cent, that is treated m the m few plants thus far equipped with »P----for savins K- W.v counted on ones lingers -it m’’ 1 ■ ed It runs into streams kills fash an is a public nuisance. And it is all goo lumrimr ».000.000 «mS ■' wood bought yearly by ''', " ul ll j mills at, say 65 a ton, and ball ol I turned into streams and seweis £7.500.000 yearly. Up the smokestack of every sulphite uni It | wasted more than enough beat “‘'.fd'r!'"*- « to tun. U fc-ST of l.klo.trU.l «l. C °Tliere isn’t oi'" l ' 11 g' log but w tl.o ■” ”

forest is concentrated as a by-product in such a process as this it will yield nearly 1 per cent, of the volume of liquor in alcohol. After the alcohol has been extracted the residence is in the adhesive class. Already it has been used as a hinder lor briquettes of coal, for making cores in foundries, for a road binder and otlier purposes. The residue also contains .‘lO per cent, of tannin, which can be extracted for leather-making. , Liquor from paper pulp made by Uie soda process yields alcohol, acetone and wood oil, the"last useful for separating minerals from the ore by the oil-nota-tion process. Thus far the principal utilisation of soda-pulp liquor has been along the line of drying it to a powder and burning it under boilers. this leaves the soda as a residue to be used again for pulp-making, but nil the woody matter, with its oil, alcohol and acetone, is burned and wasted. German manufacturers have been successful in utilising such wastes, because they have learned the necessity tor organisation and team work. They gc to wether and finance the pioneer ing, and the results of research are both respected and shared for the good or the industry. In this country manufacturers still are too much inclined to have the individualistic viewpoint, which leads them to try to monopolise a process or an outlet for themselves, or take it from the other fellow. Even among chemists working 1 on such problems" there is none too definite a standard protecting the other fellow s aims and results.” , . Along the coast every year are caught millions of fish practically worthless tor food. Taken to plants ashore, their oil is extracted and the residue dried lor fertiliser. As in the packing industry, the waste water from these plants carries valuable material; by the chemist's estimate a few large plants let run away in the l season 4000 to 5000 tons of fish solidfe. worth £lO to £ls a ton for fertiliser, poultry feed and other pur poses. , Then there is the waste of wool-scour-ing liquors. As it comes off the sheep, wool contains anywhere from 7 to 41J n e r cent, of grease, with Ito 7 per cent, of potash, and | to 1 per cent, of nitrogen. Some of the grease, recovered, but not all, and the, chemical residues, together with the ingredients in the soap and chemicals used in woolscouring, run away into the sewers; perfectly good soap and fertiliser material. A chemist took samples of cinders from the locomotive dump of a radnay. Laboratory tests showed 1 not less than 40 per cent, of unburned carbon, and often more. That railway burns nearly 2,000.000 tons of coal yearly, and at least 500,000 tons are wasted 1 . To screen these cinders and' get out the nnburned coail particles is quite feasible, and when somebody undertakes the necessary pioneering the unhurned coal can be crushed, briquetted with raw garbage, and coked for a line, clean domestic fuel; or it can be briquetted with sulphite molasses or other materials.