WEALTH AND WASTE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12063, 18 July 1917, Page 7

WEALTH AND WASTE.

MILLIONS MADE FROM REFUSE

Rubbish henpa and waste have provided the world with wealth in greater measure, than the richest gold mines ever known. (rerqa.vk.fi an English paper)The average, person may be apt., to regard the above statement, more or less sceptically. Nevertheless, it ran truthfully be .said that when any article ceases to he of value for one thing it can be always converted into some uee for another.

Every day millions of money are extracted from waste. The refuse and garbage of our towns are turned to good account. After the extraction of the grease hy special process, the residue dried and powdered makes a valuable fertiliser, which is sold at< enormous profits to farmers. In London alone it is estimated that over a million tons of refuse are. carted away every year.

Bread crumbs are swept- off tables and thrown to the sparrows or into the dustbins. If every family in London wastes only an ounce of crust and crumbs a week, the total amounts to '^ n °!b loaves, each cos'-unc fid. or £62 10s a week. For a, year the waste would represent over 110 ton? of bread ! The revenue from the Bradford Q or _ poration's grease factory amounts to nearly £50,000 per annum. Tin's sum represents what other people have thrown away. No less than 120 tons a week of valuable grease are extracted from the waste products in the wool industry.

Properly organised, every particle of house waste could be. turned into money, and through money into usefulness. The city of Glasgow makes an income of £IO,OOO a year from fertilisers made from citv waste.

The United States imports £oOO,OOO worth of waste rag* annually, just to make writing paper. Until recently 1.400.000 tons of flax were burned or allowed to go to waste in the States every year, but now a process has been discovered whereby the flax can be used for making paper, with a consequent saving of nearly a million pounds per annum.

It is difficult to credit- that table jelly has actually beeu extracted from old hoots and whisky derived from refuse which, converted into glucose, is turned into spirit by a, patent still. If by any chance you should happen to bo admiring some vp-rv fine carved marble, it would not strike you that the so-called marble might og-sily bo sawdust ! Wonderful imitations of valuable woods and marble;-., have boon made from sawdust, <und even experts have been deceived at first sight. Spirit, too. can be made from sawdust.

The. blood of animals .<zive.s albumen, an jiub'snensaKle factor in many industries. From it most beautiful buttons and other articles of adornment are made.

The toys one sees in shop windows are frequently manufactured from decaved meat, fish and fruit, whilst skim milk is sold as sizing for paper, ivory and horn.

The remaking of old clothes is one of the most; prosperous industries in this country. Old suits are torn to pieces the wool and the cotton being chemically separated. The wool is then washed, dried and re-spun, and made, into a spick and span tailor-made suit.

Scrap leather is used for various purposes, including manure, the. manufacture of heels, glue, dolls, children's shoes, washers, etc. Sometimes tho greases and tanning materials contained in the leather are extracted to be used again. Burnt leather is a materia] much in demand for use in the '* hardening " of metals.