The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1896-10-04
WASTES OF A GREAT CITY
THE DISPOSAL OF GARBAGE A VERY
PROFITABLE BUSINESS.
Nothing Really Allowed to Go to
Some way-Handling Rubbish.


other channels than the tax collectors Of
flee, but none more SO than the receipts
from the sale of .tscow-trimming'' privi-.
leges-an item, by the way, which will cease
soon to be reported.
Formerly these scow trimmers received
wages from the city; but after a while
there were men asking to be allowed
to do the work without pay, when the fact
was revealed that there had been occas-
icnal valuable finds in the contents of
ash cans and garbage barrels. 1t was but
a step farther when the city began to re-
ceive a bonus for the trimming privileges,
in addition to having much necessary work
performed free. A city official stated pub
licly a year or two ago that the value of
the labor thus secured was $4,000 a year.
and that the cash income amounted to
$1,000. The business is about to come to
an end. however, for the reason that the
contents of the garbage cans will belong
to the contractors, who are now erecting
works on Barren island for the reduc-
ton of the garbage into commercially val
liable products-grease md materials for
fertilizers.
The well regulated scow trimmer allows
nothing to escape his practiced eye that
is salable at any price, for any purpose.
His activity is an effective answer to the
Nlidl &c tLidl we DIRE ID tWdSleIul people III
our domestic economy. Can we be lacking
in economy when millions of beer and soda
bottles, and even milk bottles, are recover
ed yearly from the garbage dumps and re-
turned-for a price-to the owners whose
names are blown in the glass, to be used
again? The oftener such bottles can be
reused, the greater the profits of the bot
tiers, and this is true of the rub
Der shoppers on beer bottles as
well as of the glass. Bottles not
marked with the name of the owner the
scow trimmer is free to dispose of at his
pleasure, and not one of these is wasted.
Prescription bottles cast into garbage re-
certacles on Fifth avenue find their way
into east side apothecaries' shops; whisky
TASKS from any avenue or street may in
time return to their last user, via the gar
bage collectors route; perfume bottles,
pickle bottles, and nursing bottles all figure
in the second land bottle dealers stock
after having been purified from their con-
tact with the refuse from the table, the
Kitchen and the ash pan. Even the rub
Der shoppers sometimes used in medicine
bottles are washed and again made mar
ketable.
Rags and paper go to the paper manu-
facturers: old rubber to the concerns which
make reclaimed rubber, f" bones to ferti-
lizer works. fat to the soapmakers. and
the various kinds of metal to the trades
having use for them. The tin cans, even,
have a value, They are about 81
per cent. iron, and when melted together
form the Cheapest metal in the market.
The most extensive use made of them is
in the manufacture of sash weights for
windows, though sometimes the cans are
fiattened out and cut into straps for trunk
metal metal ears aTs' oT with tho Which thf pef the eorn snape of
book covers are sometimes protected
against injury in the mails.
SECOND HAND TRADE
1t is not from the garbage dumps alone
that the secondhand trade is enriched
with the wastes of the households, hostel
ries, stores and factories of this great city.
There are the licensed pushcarts, with
their j~angling bells, to be heard up and
down every street in the city, in quest OF
rubbish which has been considered too
valuable for the ash can. Two hundred
such carts are owned in the quarter far
up on the east side known as Little
Italy," and toward the close of the day.
as the heads of nearly all the families in
that quarter. weary with long tramping
behind their carts, slowly wend their way
homeward, turning one after another. as if
forming a procession, into One Hundred
and Twelfth street, the women of the col
ony stand in exDectant rows on the side
walks, scarcely able to await a chance to
see what has been the days reward.
Fortunes are still being made in old pa
per alone, although, on account of the re-
cent competition of wood pulp, prices of
paper have declined SO that it is no longer
wanted at the junkshopsa But the immi-
grant fresh from sunny ITALY, without an
influential friend here TO secure a paying
job for him. starts on his own account
by picking up every scrap of paper to be
seen on the streets. Early in the morning
he watches at the front CT office buildings
Tor the output OF paper from the nightly
sweepings. and he manages somehow to
fill a big bag, which he carries on his back
to Crosby or to Wooster street, where a
compatriot engaged in the paper trade in
a celler will pay him ) or 10 cents for the
lot. Eventually this paper will lind its way
to half a dozen different mills, after having
been assorted into classes and packed into
as many different bales. There are a hum
dred grades of old paper in the market.
with varying prices, and as many different
kinds of people engaged in the trade.
There are wholesale dealers who handle
single lots of five hundred tons of old
neWspapers-there's the secret of large
"circuIations'-and there are small CLEAN
ers whose incomes are eked out blythe sale
of the postage stamps saved from the en-
velopes swept out from business offices.
SPECIAL DEALERS.
The gathering of wastes is still further
specialized. For instance, thtre is on the
west side of New York an old hat dealer,
long established, who does a large business.
He is not in the trade which flourishes on
the east side, where you can buy at sec
ond hand for % cents possibly your own
last S6dSOH , nat; IfdHdCQ OAt III ddy dl
your basement door to a ~peripatetic rag
man. But he handles hats no longer wear
abie-hats which have been knocked about
the streets by horses hoofs and under car
riage wheels, or have lain all winter under
the snow beside a New England highway
hats scarcely longer recognized as such,
but fit only to be ground up for making
shoddy. In this merchants dingy base
nient the old hats are received daily by
tons, not only from New York and its
vicinity. but from every State in the Union,
and a visitor to the place may see a dozen
or more men and women seated on the floor
in the middle of the place, pulling out the
Innings and asserting the hats according
10 the materials of which they are made,
and wearing heavy wells to protect them
selves from the clouds of dust which fiji
the room. The hats, after being assorted,
are packed into bales and shipped TO the
factories.
cSot everything handled in the Various
branches of trade referred TO IN this article
is properly described as waste. The tin
smith who has cuttings left from his work,
or the oookbinder with trimmings of mar
gins. or the paper box manufacturer with
remnants of cardboard. all carefully go
over the scraps and sell them for a con-
ssderation. In more than one dry goods
store IN New York. where the paper ac-
cumulated in the daily sweeDings is sold
for cash. the receipts amount to more than
ST Loo a year. Most of TIE hi 1ycle ii-es u.s. d
in this country are built uo with cotton