Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1902-05-08
WASTE MATERIAL.
How It is Turned to Good Use
Nowadays.
Linen Rags Are Reincinerated and
Live as Paper.
Old Iron and Tin Cans Worked over
and Become New Again.

is the castoff stuff gathered by scav-
cngers and rag men. Men OF science
are ever at work tearing byproducts
and waste material to pieces to regroup
the elements into new material when
has a commercial or industrial value.
Old iron is worked over into new
iron. Linen rags are reincinerated ana
live as paper. Wooden rags are shred
ded and made into shoddy. Bones are
made into bone black, to clarity sugar
strip. Old rubbers, bits of garden nose
exploded bicycle tires and any castofIs
in which rubber is part are made over
into new rubber. Worn steel rail are
rerolled into lighter sections. oId rusty
pipe is drawn down into bright new
pipe. The tin cans which are gathered
up in alleys and from garbage boNes
are melted down and cast into WINDOW
sash weights and counter weights Tor
bascule bridges.
The blood which runs into the
slauehternouse wells is Transformed
into buttons. ana other articles requlr-
ing dense bodies and taking high pol
ish. and into fertilizers.
Rags and old carpets are cut into
strips ana woven into handsome rugs
The list of old castoff things that are
rescued from ash piles and garbage
dumps to be born again car be ex-
tended for columns, and the list WOULD
never cease growing, for every day
some new use for some wasted product
is discovered.
There was a time when tons of blood,
fresh from slaughtered cattle, flowed
UNDECIDED through the sewers under the
stockyards. Today this blood is saved,
put through several processes ana
comes out as a fertilizer or in the form
Of lakes, which are sent to sugar re-
fineries to assist in clarifying the sweet
liquor. Some of the handsome buttons
worn on new dresses once ran as warm
blood through the veins of fat steers.
Heat and hydraulic pressure are the
agents which separate the water from
the alhumen in the red fluid. and pre-
pare the dried blood for the pulveriZlnS
process which fits it for use as fsrtil-
iZer. After being boiled down. pressed,
crushed and ground to a powder, the
dried blood is mixed with potash ana
phosphorc acid and sent out as a COM
plete fertilizer.
Shoddy is a useful product of waste
material. 1t is never used alone, but III
combination with new woods. The WOOL
en- rags from which shoddy is made are
first thoroughly busted by machinery
before they are sorted. Any cotton
which may be in the rags Is got rid OF
by dipping the rags in a boiling mixture
of sulphuric acid.
Long experience has demonstrated the
exact proportion of the acid required
to eat out the cotton fibers without de-
stroying the wool The effect of dipping
the rags into the water and acid is to
rot the cotton so that the wooden part
of the fabric falls to pieces easily
After being dried the rags are run
through a machine that removes every
bit of dust, leaving the pure, clean
wool. The wooden rags and cloth are
dyed. and thel run through a machine
whose thousands of steel pins not only
shred the rags. but split the threads SC
that the rags which enter the machine
leave it in the form of wool fiberS.
The wool is put through a cardins
machine. which thoroughly combs out
the wooden particles. mixes them and
turns them out in the form of long
fluffy rolls, which are packed in bales
ready to be shipped to the wooden mills
where the shoddy is mixed with new
wool.
While wooden rags are sent to the
shoddy mills, linen rags naturally start
from the ragman's storeroom to the
paper mill. There they are mechani-
cally cleaned and then deity sorted by
girls and women, who throw out every
rag that is not linen. The selected rags
oil n re hN- ah \,
boiled in lime water to remove the col
ors. after which they are ground to
pulp and become the "half stock o
the paper makers. This pulp i.
bleached. and after passing through {
machine called a "beater," which com
pletes the puIping process, it is sent t,
the paper machine to be made into fin.
linen paper.
The odd IRON which forms half tn,
burden of the ragmans song is the basil
of business whose output is valued an
nually in millions Of dollars Every piec.
OF old iron, wrought or cast. rusty oil
clean, can be utilized. The old cast iror
is sent to foundrfes and pudding fur.
naces. the old wrought iron. bars. sheets
ana plates, is sent to the rolling mills
Cast iron sent to foundries is remelted
with pig iron, and begins a new life OF
usefulness under new forms and shapes
Ihe wrought iron goes TO the scrap piles
IN rolling mill yards. There it is sorted
ard cut to convenient lengths, then made
up into box" piles or faggots, heated
70 a white heat in furnaces and run
through the rolls, which first weld the
pieces OF iron into a solid billet and then
reduce the billets to bars.
"A profitable business has been found
IN the redrawing of old iron pine and
Doller tubes. Most OF this waste material
is thlckly covered with rust when it ar
rVes ar the factory, and the rust is re-
moved by the simple process of heating
.he OLD pipe to a cherry red and pllInyinf
II INTO water. The sudden cortracfio1
Ioosens the rust scales. and the pine is
sent 10 the heating furnace clean and
bright A good welding heat prepares the
pipe Tor the redrawing process. This con-
sists In pulling the white hot piue
tnrough die, which not only reduces its
diameter but makes it solid 1t is heated
asaln ana drawn through a smaller die.
anu the process is continued until the
pipe is down to the required diameter
Inen the new pipe is Strengthened and is
ready for the market.
steel rails which have been hammered
ana fattened by the huge drivers Of To-
comotiyes are heated and rerolled
1mrough the finishing passes of rail mill
rms process, of course reduces the size
OF the rail, but ii renews the life of the
ran at comparatively slight expense Old
bn