RICHES FROM REFUSE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCIX, Issue 11537, 25 March 1898, Page 7

RICHES FROM REFUSE.

The shrewd speculator who offered the New York city authorities the sum of .£4OO a year for the privilege of permission to scour the streets of the city, and to retain the refuse found therein, now derives an annual income of more than .£IOOO from that enterprise. Almost everything he collects is utilised in some way, and ultimately turned into gold. Old paper is made into papier mache, rags into paper, old garments aie ground up by machinery, manipulated skilfully, and sold as shoddy cloth.

A smart Parisian baker has built a big fortune from bread-crumbs. It occurred to him some years ago that a deal of good material was being wasted in remnants of stale bread. These he carefully collected from various sources, cleansed them, and worked them up into cheap cakes for the very poor of Paris. As his business developed, he employed agents to gather in the remnants of bread from hotels, schools and other institutions, and so extended his trade. To-day he has the biggest, business in Paris, and is almost a millionaire.

A rich tobacco merchant in London has derived a deal of his huge income from the sale of a fancy snuff, patented under a peculiar name, and very popular with the trade. But few of his countless customers who inhale the fragrant dust are aware of the fact that the potent powder is composed almost entirely of the waste ends of cigars flung away by smokers in the streets of the metropolis. An abandoned marl pit in Lancashire, which had lain waste for years, was purchased from its original owner by a Mr Henry Boys, of Walsall, who secured it for a comparatively small sum. Its new proprietor dug deep into the -old pit, manipulated the marl: in a. skilful manner, and turned it into bricks, which, for their unique quality, were soon in great demand among the builders of the Black Country. In the course of ten years the shrewd brickmaker had made a fortune of more than .£12,000,

A thoughtful man in the English toytrade was impressed by the number of old tins he observed lying about. It was borne in upon his mind that these discarded tins might be made into children’s toys, and at small cost. Acting on this idea, he collected the tins in considerable quantities, started a small factory, and employed a number of girls, who cut the tins by machinery and turned them into attractive-looking toys. This novel notion has yielded him during the last seven years many thousands of pounds.