The outstanding characteristic of the most approved of these appliances is the ability to fashion brick-like masses of concrete of varying sizes and dimensions. One of the most handy machines of this character is the “Winget,” wherewith a wide variety of concrete formations may be fashioned cheaply and expeditiously, and adapted to every conceivable building requirement. This machine is noteworthy from the simplicity of its design and operation, compactness, and high speed of working, as well as imposing the minimum demand upon skilled labour. The concrete is not run, but is shovelled into the mould and tamped down. When charged the depression of a lever lifts the block, and in such a manner as to permit its ready removal by two men armed with a carrying bar fitted with forks which grip the under edges of the mass.
This machine has been extensively utilized in this country, and it has proved highly efficient in working. It is excellently adapted for the preparation of blocks or slabs from waste materials, such as the clinker refuse from electric light generating stations, dust-destructors, and other industrial establishments in general, as well as such other residues as coke breeze, chalk, and rubble. High speed of working, combined with the size of the block which may be turned out therewith, enables it to consume such material at relatively high speed. In a Midland town where aggregate of a waste character was required for the fashioning of such blocks, the whole of the daily accumulation of residue from the local electric light station, averaging seven tons, had to be supplemented by supplies of similar waste from private industrial establishments to keep the machine working steadily throughout the day.
With such a machine practically any form of inorganic residue can be put to useful constructional account. Its perfection is enabling private authorities to exploit profitably dumps of refuse which have long been eyesores in the locality for material to satisfy their own building needs. One gas company, which formerly contracted in the usual way for extensions to its buildings, generally in brick or stone, now completes all such work with its own labour and with its own waste, its one expenditure for material being the requisite cement. It encountered pronounced difficulty in disposing of the coke breeze or dust; it was virtually unmarketable. Conspicuous piles accumulated because it was disdained as fuel. The company acquired a “Winget” machine, and by mixing the breeze with cement converted the useless refuse into substantial building blocks. Those which it does not require for its own building operations find a ready market. The outstanding fact, however, is that all recent building extensions are carried out with concrete blocks prepared upon the spot from material which the company produces during the conduct of its business and which has always been considered waste having no commercial value whatever.
To the municipality, faced with residue accumulating from the refuse destructor, gas, and electric lighting installations, such a machine is virtually indispensable. It offers a complete economic solution to a perplexing problem. A certain amount of official building is always necessary, and concrete blocks with clinker forming the aggregate constitutes an ideal and inexpensive material. One great objection often raised against the utilization of cinder and other similar residue for this purpose is the dingy tone of the resultant block. But this need not constitute a handicap. If used for the external walls of cottages the concrete can be finished off in rough-cast, or may even be plastered and painted. In many instances excellent reproductions of half-timbered styles have been carried out in this material, and are far more substantial than those wrought in the conventional brick.
But the chemist must be harnessed to the development, that is if the most satisfactory results are to be obtained. It is the tendency to ignore the chemist which has been responsible for much concrete failure for homes in the past. It is imperative that clinker refuse be analysed. If it be associated with fused glass it is useless for the purpose, for the simple reason that the smooth surface of the glass fails to afford the requisite gripping surface to the cement. Unless care be displayed in this connection disintegration of the block will set in, in which event the concrete will be condemned as a failure when, as a matter of fact, it is the ignorance of the individual and the presence of the glass which are responsible for collapse. Similarly it is essential that the aggregate should be free from organic material. This may be intensely dry when the mixing of the concrete is taken in hand. But the organic material will absorb the moisture after the manner of a sponge, continuing to do so until completely saturated. As a result of this action the material necessarily expands, and so will bring about the breakdown of the concrete. Therefore, if full advantage be taken of the chemist specializing in constructional material in the scientific preparation of concrete, as is done in Germany and the United States, failures will be few and far between.
The authorities of our towns and cities are called upon to handle 5,300,000 tons of dust and rubble collected in the dust-bins of the population during the year. In addition millions of tons of similar refuse accumulate from the consumption of coal and coke by the thousands of industrial establishments scattered over the country. How much of this huge yield of waste is turned to industrial account? But an insignificant fraction, as is proved by its commanding no market value. Certain enterprising authorities, such as the City Fathers of Glasgow, by taking a little trouble, are able to dispose of the whole of their output of this residue and at a profitable figure. Surely what can be done by one authority is capable of being achieved by others up and down the country.
But clinker waste is not the only refuse adapted to building operations. Concrete is something like paper—can be made virtually from anything. There are few building sites which are not capable of yielding something in this respect. This was demonstrated very conclusively in the course of the development of an estate in Ireland. The work was most comprehensive, involving the provision of factories, workshops, farm buildings, and private residences. To prepare the site it was necessary to remove a substantial hill. Instead of excavating the obstacle, dumping and levelling the soil in the usual manner, it was turned into a “Winget” machine to be converted into concrete blocks, which were then utilized as the wherewithal for the construction of the buildings. The result was conspicuously successful, and it is doubtful whether the development scheme could have been carried out so economically and inexpensively in any other way.
There are welcome signs of revived interest in the possibilities of concrete for the building of our homes. In many parts of the country there are enormous hillocks which at the moment are nothing but eyesores. The pottery district may be cited as a case in point. These disfiguring piles have hitherto been ignored, although the localities are clamouring wildly for increased housing accommodation to satisfy the demands of their citizens. Yet these heaps are really potential mines of wealth. Associated with cement and deftly fashioned they can be converted into concrete bricks, the waste constituting ideal material for the aggregate, while, should we be sufficiently enterprising to acknowledge the possibilities of the poured cement house, their value is equally established. No city, town, or village in these islands should suffer from a shortage of houses for its peoples, and none need tarry for bricks. They have ample constructional material at their very doors to build as many houses as they can possibly desire. To turn these potential resources to account it is only necessary to abandon our moth-eaten shibboleths, revise our laws and regulations governing building operations, forget a good deal of what we are supposed to have learned in the past, and turn to science and engineering with a more enlightened spirit. By combining the artist with the engineer and the chemist, and by admitting the utilitarian possibilities of waste, all the difficulties assailing this country at the present moment in regard to one of its greatest sociological problems might be overcome, and the inhabitants of the British Isles provided with drier, more comfortable, and more durable and artistic homes than have ever been brought within their reach during the centuries which have passed, and at a fraction of the cost which is now held to be inevitable if brick is to be employed.
CHAPTER XX
THE FUTURE OF THE WASTE PROBLEM: POSSIBILITIES FOR FURTHER DEVELOPMENT
What is to be the future of the Waste Problem? This is the question agitating all circles to-day. The observance and practice of economic methods are being forced upon us owing to the high prices which are obtaining for every description of raw material, whether intended for the table or the factory.