Passaic City record., 1893-10-07
WEALTH IN WASTE.
Discoveries in the Utilization Of
Refuse Substances.
How Some Ingenious Inventors
Have Made Fortunes.

in nature. As the plant is extensively
grown in Florida, a new industry in
time will spring up there, and the pro-
ducers of the delicious pineapple will
have a new source of profit at their
command. But it does not speak well
for the boasted inventive genius of
Americans that pineapple fibre cloth
has been manufactured for some time
in Central America, and that it is now
an article of export.
This is, however, only one Of the
discoveries made in recent years by
which waste material is being utilized.
1t would puzzle any one but an expert
to go into store today and tell from
what material percentage of the
goods are manufactured. Grass, tim
Der, saw-dust and other products that
were once rejected as useless are now
saved and put to practical use. The
Hollanders have even discovered how
to convert the peat from bogs into soft
woods which can be spun into cloth,
rugs and blankets at half the cost
these goods can be made from wool
grown on the sleeps back. Such
discovery ought to open before Ireland
and some other countries the prospect
of gre at industry, which will increase
their prosperity and commercial inn
portance.
A generation ago there was hardly a
mill of any kind that was not troubled
with heap of rubbish or waste mate
rial that it did not know what to do
with. The silk manufacturers saw the
rise of this heap with annoyance, and
they took it as favor if any one would
cart it away and use it as fertilizer.
An English inventor guessed at the
possibilities in this pile of refuse and
set about inventing machinery to util-
ize it.
Today, as result of his fore
thought and genius, 5000 persons are
employed in making the finest seal
plushes, ribbons and velvets from the
refuse piles of silk mills, and the in
ventor has grown rich. The cotton
seed oil industry is a better illustra-
ton of economizing waste, but the
dimensions to which the industry has
grown are not SO generally known.
The annual product in oil, cake, lint
and hulls from cotton-seed, which
generation ago was allowed to rot, is
$27, 900, 900, and it could be made
greater if there was market for the
product.
The great decrease in the price Of
paper comes from the discovery that
nearly everything that grows can be
turned into this useful article. Cotton
stalks, tobacco stalks, and sawdust
that used to cumber the ground are
now made into cigarette wrappers, wa
ter pals, car wheels, and even build
ings for temporary purposes. The once
despised sawdust can be used in still
other ways. From 1t can be extracted
alcohol, acids and dyes
The extraction Of dyes from coal
tar and the refuse OF refined petroleum
has for dozen years been one of the
wonders of the chemists art, but they
are not the only things that are OBJ
tanned from coal, and science is con-
stantly widening the list. The Stag of
furnaces is now turned into asbestos,
cement, pottery and friedrich, and
when pulverized becomes a base for
paints. The refuse from wooden mills,
which has contaminated SO many
streams, has been found to be valuable
for the oil it contains, and its extrac-
ton will not only profit the inventor
but do away with nuisance.
The progress made in utilizing waste
material is probably only beginning
of what will be done in this way.
There should, in fact, be no waste,
and invention may yet realize that
wish. 1t should be an instructive les
son to those pessimists who imagine
that the facilities at the command of
man have been put to their best use
and that no further development is
possible. 1t is more probable that the
resources of nature are as yet only
understood in the crudest way, and
that in mastery over these forces lies
the advancement Of the human race. -
Philadelphia Press.
Novel Cure Of Somnambulism.