The Douglas independent. [volume] (Roseburg, Or.) 187?-1885, 1884-08-16
THE RICHES OF GARBAGE.
The Wealth in the Waste and Refuse
OF the City.
TChicspo Tribune j

[Chicago Tribune.
A great deal of money is thrown away
every year by the waste of the refuse of
our cites. In Boston some system of
utilizing it has been adopted, and it is
said that the demand for the garbage
far outruns the supply. Milkmen even
steal it from the contractors and carry
it away in their milk-cans. European
cites have for long while
economical in this as in other
minute ways that mount up to enor-
nous totals. New York throws away
all of its refuse. Chicago has used a
large part of it for filling up the lake
front and for bring ng up the streets to
the new grade rendered necessary by
raising the city. The market gardens in
the vicinity of the city take more and
more every year of what is furnished
by the stables. But neither here, nor
in New York, nor in other city except
in Boston is anything like an adequate
use made of the wealth that could be
extracted from the dust heaps.
A machine has been invented and
put into practical operation in New
York that may do something towards
solving the question of how to handle
those street bonanzas. It is rag and
bone picker of several hundred Italian
power that will sift and sort out refuse
of all kinds to the extent of $50 tons a
day. Until this machine went into op-
GRAFTON all the refuse of New York,
ashes, and garbage, and street sweep
ings-was dumped into scows and taken
out to sea and there abandoned to the
ebbing tide. But the success of the
machine proves that much more
profitable use may be made of it, to
say nothing of the advantage of put
ting q stop to the deposit of bars Of
bones, and old iron, and dirt at the
mouth of the harbor.
There is nothing very complicated in
the mechanism by which this is done
The rags and paper are picked out and
put to one side to dry. The dust is
sifted out to be carted off. All the
solid matter is thrown into a washer"
in which the straw, the leather, the
vegetable refuse and other light mat
ter rise to the surface and are swept
away into crematory where they are
burned. The heavy objects iron,
glass, coal, cinders, and other things
are carried along on broad belt from
which they are picked off by Italians
and sorted into heaps. In this way out
of $50 loads of refuse, all of which
hitherto has had to be carted to the
boats and hauled out to sea, there are
but thirty loads left to be source of
expense to the city; that which is taken
is heavy and sinks at once to the bot
tom, rising no more to haunt the fes-
tive bathers at Long Branch and Coney
| Island
The figures of the value of that
which is saved are the most interesting
to the owners of the machine and to the
public as we'll, for they are an en-
couragement to enterprising men to ex-
tend the area within which these arti-
fetal Italian rag and bono assorters
may be introduced in our cities, which
will be clean the moment it is discov-
cred that there is money for somebody
in keeping them clean. The rags are
sold for $50 a ton. The old iron is
worth So ton; the broken glass So q
ton In every load of 1,800 pounds OF
refuse brought to the machine it finds
400 pounds of coal and cinders, which
have furnished the machine with all the
fuel it has needed and will supply some
! for sale in addition.