The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-10-29
MILLS DID OUT SCRAP FROM
 SLAC DUMPS
BY J. HOWARD ABsALOM, JR. United Press stan Correspondentl

United Press stan COrrespOndentD
 Cleveland, O., oct. 28 - (U.P) = While MT. and Mrs. America and all the kiddies are securing their premises for scrap metal to keep the nations steel mills going full blast, the mills are doing a nice hunk of scrap salvage for them- selves right in their own back yards.
 Huge slag dumps, accumlatioEls of the years, are being taken apart lump by lump and hundreds of tons of useable metal taken from them.
 Until the wars needs created a definite shortage of steel and other metals, slag was considered next to worthless and used for many pur- poses besides reYnelting to reclaim what metal it might contain.
 Remelting is an expensive proc- cess, and, although figures aren't available, no doubt, costs more than the actual value of the metal 1t produces. However, since cost is scarcely considered in critical times like the present, reprocesSing is proving extremely valuable to steel companies.
 Boys Led the Way
 w. T. Mossman, vice-president of the Jones and Laughlin Steel Company, Pittsburgh, said that the process started sometimes ago. at his company's Pittsburgh works when three lads, equipped with a home made drivers helmet, asked the company's permission to salvage the material out of the river, where it had been dumped for many years.
 The company granted their re- quest and promised to pay the boys the ceiling price for what metal they salvaged.
 Before many weeks had gone by, the three big-city prospectors were realizing a handsome profit from their venture and the company had started operations of its own:
 At Jones and Laughlin's Otis works in Cleveland, where 50 tons of scrap day is taken from the slag dump, an estimated 10000 tons is hoped eventually to be re- claimed.
 Slag, itself, is made up of chunks removed from the pits of the basic and acid open hearth furnaces.
 Chunks Broken Up
 Since the chunks themselves are too large to be re-charged into a furnace and since only part of g chunk is metal, they must be broken up and as much of the waste con- tent as possible removed before they are reused.
 Huge drop cranes equipped with heavy ball weighing several tons are used to crack the chunks into suitable sized pieces. Then the use- able parts are picked up by mag net-equipped crane, loaded and sent on their way to the mills.
 Aside from the chunks of metal removed from the slag, these once useless dumps afford another source of scrap.
 Reclaim Iron Bars
 Iron bars are placed across the bottom of furnace pits before charg- ing to give means of pulling the chunks from the pit after 6 tap Is made.
 When the slag is discarded, 50 are the bars. They, too, of course, are being taken in quantity from the dumps.
 After five months of the mining" operations at Otis, about half of the estimated amount had been re- moved. It is being used at the rate of about 18,000 pounds per furnace heat.
 Steel authorities have expressed the hope that scrap of all sorts, which has been a nfe-saver to date, will be unnecessary when the pres- ent accumulation runs out. They hope that enough blast furnaces will have been completed to supply the mills by that time. but the ans wer will be unknown for some months.
 But until then their theme song is more scrap"