Waste products and undeveloped substances : a synopsis of progress made in their economic utilisation during the last quarter of a century at home and abroad / by P.L. Simmonds.

Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Waste products and undeveloped substances : a synopsis of progress made in their economic utilisation during the last quarter of a century at home and abroad / by P.L. Simmonds. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    on tkronghout the South since the Rebellion, controlled chiefly by Boston men; and, as the demand for use there occurs, the needed supply is meted out in a manner be- speaking at once a New England method. In the New England States, over fifteen million dollars' (3,000,000Z. sterling) worth of old material is annually worked over; and at least five hundred thousand dollars' worth of this peculiar stock could at any time be thrown upon the market by the Boston dealers. The amounts con- sumed by our mills are astonishing, especially of shoddy. Woollen mills could be named that purchase each year from three to six thousand dollars' worth of shoddy, and this, too, in addition to flocks. Very many paper-mills have standing orders with the largest paper-dealers for thirty and fifty tons of stock per week. The Kingsley Iron and Machine Company receive and consume from sixty to seventy-five tons of scrap-iron each week, and the Old Colony and Ames Shovel Companies stand ready to take all the old wrought-iron offered in the market. K early all the old lead sold in this vicinity is purchased by the Boston Lead Company, and one dealer, who makes it a specialty to supply them, turns in, on an average, one hundred tons per month. I am aware that there is a kind of contradiction of terms in the expression of the utilisation of waste, since, by the utilisation of all residuary matters, there will be no waste in any manufacturing operations. There are many- natural products, however, yet lying waste or undeveloped, to which attention will one day be prominently turned, as new demands arise to be supplied. My desire is to press upon the attention of all persons engaged in the useful arts the importance of the prevention of waste, and 1 shall advert briefl}^ to the utilisation of the refuse products of certain manufactures and processes of domestic economy, with the hope of suggesting to those engaged in other trades the profits which might accrue to themselves, and the benefits which would result to mankind, from the useful application of these hitherto worthless residues. In our great textile industries all the residue and nominal waste is pretty generally utilised ; the waste from the cotton, flax, jute, woollen, and silk manufactures is now fully appreciated and re-worked. Thus we import