Waste

in manufacturing, in household economy, and in the arts generally, such material as cannot be used. The use of what was formerly considered waste is one of the triumphs of modern civilization. The system of saving barnyard manure and applying it to the fields is one of the most signal instances of utilizing waste. The garbage from cities, formerly hauled away at expense and dumped as a nuisance, is now used to fertilize gardening districts. The city of Glasgow sorts its garbage carefully. A part is burned in furnaces, furnishing manufacturing power estimated at 9,000 horse-power for a day of ten hours. Formerly the smelting furnaces of Great Britain expended two and one-half million dollars in removing slag and dumping it in gullies and ravines or in the sea. A very large portion of it is now used in the manufacture of artificial brick used in the construction of buildings and for street paving. Sawdust, formerly considered a nuisance to be gotten rid of in the easiest possible manner, is now used for fuel with which to operate the mill. Mixed with alum and glue and worked with water into a dough, it is pressed in molds into artificial wood considered very desirable for woodwork. Norwegian millowners have begun its distillation for tar and wood naphtha. It is used also in the manufacture of briquettes for fuel. Managers of large slaughterhouses consider that the value of gelatine, glue, fertilizers, hair, bristles, blood, neat's foot oil, bones, horns, and hoofs, now saved from the waste pile, sufficient to pay the expense of operating their establishments.

Under improved methods, wool washers and combers expect to realize about seventenths of a cent per pound from the eke or wool fat formerly allowed to go to waste. Cotton-seed, formerly thrown away, is now valued at about one-fourteenth of the entire crop. The United States imports annually about $5,000,000 worth of coal-tar colors and dyes made from material formerly thrown away. France now recards, spins, and converts into cloth half a million pounds of waste silk formerly considered worthless. Old rubbers, once thrown away, are now remelted and combined with new materials in the manufacture of the coarser fabrics, such as boot heels and the like. Tin cans are melted into window weights. Alcohol is made from the green corn cobs at the canning establishments, once thrown away. At Gary, Indiana, the gas from the iron smelters is utilized to drive thirty-three huge gas engines. This power is used to generate electricity with which to drive the shafting and pulleys of the gigantic rolling mills of the steel plant.

The baths of sulphuric acid in which millions of tons of steel plates are cleaned of grease before they are galvanized were formerly thrown away. The acid is now reemployed as a means of purifying and clarifying reservoirs of city water. Over forty American cities, including St. Louis, have adopted the process. The old acid now sells for $1,000,000 a year. A mere list of the useful articles made from what was once considered waste would occupy pages.

See Shoddy; Glue; Soap; Paper; Galvanizing