The log cabin Democrat., 1916-05-15
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AR stops waste!

HCCST@ The apotheosis of the uSSEZzENk junkman is at hand, says
 writer in the St. Louis Post Dispatch. Today there is invest ed in the industry of making-over scrap material the vast sum of $100,- 000000. The firms interested do a business of more than 00,000,000 a year. It is business of little things, concerning itself with what most peo- pie consider things of such insigni- ficant value as not being worth think ing about at all. Yet hundred mil lion year!
 And how the war has boomed their particular business.
 Prices have been sent soaring. This has made it possible to transport waste from far-distant points that was never usable before. Despised junk is now rich raw material. Why, wool en rags are worth almost their weight in gold-they cost three times as much as they did before the war. Some rags have gone up 800 per cent. And so we get the strange anomaly that
 
 Why? Because they have been dyed and dealers want those precious dyes back again (and they get them). With Germany blockaded, no dyes-of many of which they have a monopoly-can come out
 Shoddy? You turn your nose at it! Do you realize that shoddy is the only fhinp hot b,e hn wear woolen clothing at all? Or that without deception (to the tailors) it is used to face some of the finest cloths in which the Beau Brummels today be- tog themselves? This because it makes a better finish.
 Look at the romance of coal tar Once dumped into vile-smelling heaps of refuse or pumped into the river, to- day 1t yields more than two thousand colors. besides drugs, conservatives, medicines, explosives, favors, syn thetic sugar and Quinine. perfumes, chemicals, and what not There is a business of more than $l00, 100000 in coal tar by-products today. And this is not part of the business of utilizing waste, either, for coal tar is no longer counted as waste, but as useful product from baking coal and mak. ing Illuminating gas of it. The 140 pounds of tar from every ton is the most precious of all the yield from coal.
 Germany is doing economical won- ders with it's war waste today. The 'sammelstelle" is the chief point of in terest to the visitor who can get be- hind the lines. Collection point" it would be in plain English-junk pile, really. It contains the gleanings of ject from bits of rubber to broken bayonets and pieces of exploded shells. are collected and sorted.
 Experts run over everything. Car. tridges are saved out, and water bot ties and clothes still fit to wear are piled up. The bayonets go to one place to be made over; the rifles are overhauled-every kind of make-and come back like new. Ripped and bursted auto tires go to the melting pot and come back as sound white ones. A big laundry cleans 100000 garments every month Damaged ar tillery goes to shops, where it Is re- paired. Wheels are remade; barrels rebored. A new gun is often made out of the undamaged parts of several guns collectively put out of business. Leather is set to other uses, shoes are repaired and straps that are torn are cut into other widths and lengths, and put to other tasks.
 And what do we do here along sim liar lines, in these piping peace days? Well, for example, we work over tin cans-a perfect mine of wealth-and iron scrap, and get back $l4,000.OOO worth of useful metal again. Our tin is used over and over. Before the war scrap iron brought $1O75 ton; now 1t has gone up to $1S50. Melted back into ingots it is quite as good as ever. Steel rails discarded by the big rail roads are rerolled into rails for less important lines where lighteE ones will do, or are bought by contractors for the use of their service lines on big jobs.
 Scrap copper today Is worth almost as much as new metal. War boosted the price regularly. so that by the end of 1915 new stuff brought 23 cents a pound and the old fetched l9 cents, and business of $25,000,000 in it, Scrap zinc, once drug on the market