WEALTH AND WASTE.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 7914, 4 August 1917, Page 1 (Supplement)

WEALTH AND WASTE.

MILLIONS MADE FROM REFUSE. Rubbish-heaps and waste have provided the world with wealth in greater measure than the richest gold-mines ever known. The average person may be apt to legard the above statement more or les; sceptically. Nevertheless, it can truthfully be said taht when any article ceases to bo of value for one thing it can always be converted into some use lor another. Every day millions of money are extracted from waste. The' refuse and gnubage of> our towns are turned to good account. After the extraction of the grease by special process the residua dried and powdered makes a valuable -ertiliser, which is sold at enormous profit to farmers. In London alone it is estimated that over a million tonsi of refuse are carted away every year. Breadcrumbs are swept off tables and thrown to the sparrow's or into the duntbins. If every family in London wastes only an ounce of crust and crumbs a week, the total amounts to 2,500 21b. loaves 1 , each costing 6d., or £62 10s a week. For a .year the waste would represent over liJ tons of bread! The revenue from the Bradford Corporation’s grease factory amounts to nearly £50,000 per annum. This sum represents what other people have thrown away. No lt«s v ths(n 120 tons a week of valuable grease are extracted from the waste products in the wool industry. Properly organised, every particlo 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 cif<y waste. TABLE JELLY FROM OLD BOOTS. The United States imports £500,000 worth of waste rfigy 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 millions pounds per annum. It is difficult to credit that table jelly has actually been extracted from old boot*!, and whisky derived from refuse which, converted into glucose, is turned into spirit by a patent still. If l<v any chance you should happen to bo admiring some very fine carved marbhp, it would not strike you that the so-called marble might easily bo sawdust! Wonderful imitations of valuable woods and marbles have been made from sawdust, .and even experts , have been deceived at first sight. Spirit, too, can be made from sawdust. The blood of animals gives albumen, and other articles of adornment are tries. From it most beautiful buttons an dother articles of adornment are made. The toys one sees in shop windows are frequently manufactured from decayed meat, fish, and fruit, whilst skim milk is sold as sizing for paper, ivory, and horn. The re-making of old clothes is one of the most prosperous industries : n this country. Old suits are torn to pieces, the wool and the cotton being chemically separated. The wool it then Wr.ished, 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 cf heel, glue, dolls, children’s shoes, washer.?, etc. Sometimes the greases and tanning materials contained in the leather are extracted to be. used again. Burnt leather is a material much in demand for u>se in the “hardening” of metals.