The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1897-03-17
WASTE-BASKET GLEANINGS.
They Have a Considerable CONNER
cial Value, Taken I'm Their Entirety.

Down In cellar at IL City Hall place, New
YORK, almost within a stones throw OF. the
brooklyn bridge entrance, one may see six or
seven Italians, men and women, sitting cross
legged on the floor picking away at immense
piles OF paper In front of them, throwing a
piece here and handful there, not saying
much, but Just pick, pick picking all day
long Big bales of paper are stacked up
against the walls all around them, and the
only ilght that resches them comes through
the dirty panes OF glass i'm tho door and from
hickering gaslight in the rear of the place
The writer in moment of curiosity went
down the ricltety stairs into the place ths
other day. The man sitting on tho floor near
10 the door looked as If ne might be the boss.
What are you doing here 2" asked the Wis.
itor.
Waste pape," was the laconic response.
Ihis was encouraging, but still rather in
definite.
"oh, you buy and sell waste paper ?" ven
tured the inquirer
fes, replied the italian, who by this time
was gaining assurance, seeing that the visitor
wore no brass buttons or health department
badge.
we'll where do you get all this stuff ~,
"bigga build all around" replied the mer-
chant, with sweep of his hand
glance at the piles of scrap paper on the
fioor supplemented this explanation TO a won
derful extent. There We're letter heads of
weli-known law firms, crumpled and torn le-
gal documents and circulars and pamphlets
without number few miles of ticker tape
tangled up with the rest made up the mess
which this thrifty merchant had collected
from the "bigga build all around" and was
, now engaged in sorting with several assist
ants.
The big piles have to be gone over almost
piece by piece before they are salabe. The
white letter paper is put in this basket, the
brown paper in that one. Here is a pile of
trimmings from book bindery, and over
there is the resting place of part of the circu-
lation of every newspaper in town. This
last-named pile Is almost worthless, for since
the manufacture of newspaper from wood
pulp has been perfected old newspapers have
little or no value.
Some idea of the size of this waste. paper
business may be gathered from the fact that
one OF the down town office buildings which
has no newspaper Office in it to swell its out
put. has from 400 to 800 pounds of these scraps
to dispose of each week. The dealer in City
Hall place has no monopoly OF tho trade, but
does perhaps, little more than his share
The janitors and agents of buildings are only
too glad to dipsose of their waste paper in
this businosslilxe and systematic way.
1t can hardly be said that the sale Of waste
paper is source of revenue sufficient to
cause sleeplessness among the owners OF the
big buildings, yet it makes small addition
to the earnings of the janitor which is very
acceptable. The insurance companies, more
over, have clauses in their policies forbidding
the accumulation of waste paper, and are
very strict as to their enforcement.
The quotations on waste paper vary from
timo TO time. At present the Italian who
buys and sells 10 says that he pays about 10
cents hundred pounds for the ordinary
waste paper of IA big building He sells the
sorted stuff for from 80 to 15 cents a hundred.
The market is now Mt n low ebb as will be
seen from his resume of the situation. "No
gooda biz now. Gooda biz in summer time
McKin' malsa gooda biz. You vota McKin' ?"
IL Is seldom that anything OF value is found
in theIwaste paper. One might suppose that
pens, knives, or possibly money or checks.
might be picked out of the contents of
hundreds of business mems waste baskets, but
such is not tho case