Millions from Waste

by Frederick Arthur Ambrose Talbot

Efforts have been made to stimulate the preservation and surrender of waste along voluntary lines. But such measures cannot hope to be commercially successful, except under peculiar circumstances, as for instance when patriotism may act as the incentive. The voluntary handling of waste must of necessity prove wanting because it is deficient in discipline, method, and organization such as science demands to fulfil the conquests she indicates. Compulsory measures are absolutely imperative, otherwise all the mickle which makes the muckle must slip through the meshes of the net, no matter how well it may be cast. The Germans were enabled to bid defiance to the world, notwithstanding the stringency of the blockade, by the elaboration of rigid laws ensuring the collection of all waste. Such measures were in force more or less during the halcyon pre-war days, but were severely tightened up when national existence was seriously threatened. Similar compulsory methods will need to be introduced into this country to ensure the full recovery of valuable materials for industry, that is if we are to reduce our purchases from abroad. The desired end can be achieved indirectly by prohibiting the acquisition of the obvious raw materials from foreign sources, because instantly the refuse and residues capable of taking the place of the raw materials will commence to appreciate in value and accordingly will be preserved and utilized.

But the citizens of Britain are opposed to compulsion in any and every form. To impose such conditions is to interfere with the liberty of the subject, although absolute and unfettered freedom, as experience has adequately testified, reacts against the welfare of the individual and the community in general. Failing uncompromising compulsory measures is it possible to achieve comparative success by spontaneous private enterprise?

To obtain an indication of what can be achieved in this direction it is necessary to go to the French capital. There an enterprising and energetic Frenchman, Monsieur Verdier-Dufour, undoubtedly built up one of the largest businesses in the world—founded upon dust-bin waste. The organization was somewhat intricate and full of inner workings although highly effective in the production of results, because the guiding spirit knew that everything has its specific use.

The operation commences in the gutter at the bin in which the householder has dumped his refuse and which he has moved to the kerbstone for collection. Now the Frenchman is a cute bargainer, as the whole world knows, and the concierge, after the passing of the ordinance compelling the householder to bin his refuse, promptly saw a means to improve his pocket. The bin was a lucky dip and accordingly was well worth exploiting as a concession. He promptly drove a bargain with one class of the vast army of Paris waste-gatherers which entitled the individual to rummage the bin before the collector came along, the only requirement being that the “miner” should be up early and on the spot before the refuse carts commenced operations. The placier, as this individual is called, did his work well—the bin contained little of material value after he had sorted its contents. But other less luckless members of the garbage-rummaging fraternity did not spurn to submit the tailings from the first process to another treatment and reap a harvest in the process.

The odds and ends gathered in this manner, and which were of a most diversified nature, for the most part found their way to Monsieur Verdier-Dufour’s establishment, where the precise value of each article, and the grade of each range of substances, became known to the uttermost centime. Nothing was too small to be examined and each article had its individual bin. The man at the helm knew the exact application for each article, while he was a master-mind in following the markets. When quotations were abnormally low he could hold on for the return of better times. His waste commanded the admiration of the firms with which he dealt because he maintained the standard of his products which were exactly as described. Manufacturers merely had to dump the waste into their machines, thus treating it as if it were raw material. There was no interference with the rigid routine of their business, nor were they called upon to expend a further penny in rendering the waste suitable for their intentions. So the master-mind built up a large and highly lucrative business and thus there was very little household waste which escaped reclamation.

Co-operative societies among the rag-pickers supplemented individual effort in this field. In this instance the process is simpler because it is conducted along broader lines. Sorting is not conducted to such a fine degree as under the individual system above described. Consequently it suffers because lower prices are paid. Waste commands a price according to the time and labour which will have to be expended by the purchaser before such material can be safely turned into the precise channels of the huge manufacturing machine for which it has been acquired.

The objection to both co-operative and individual methods, such as I have described, is that they can only be conducted upon the requisite scale in the very largest cities where the volume of material to be handled is relatively heavy. Waste must be forthcoming in a steady stream of uniform volume to justify its exploitation, and the fashioning and maintenance of these streams is the supreme difficulty.

Ostensibly, in this country we have the very finest machinery in existence for the reclamation of waste of every description—the municipal and civic authorities. But, as results have conclusively demonstrated, they are the least efficient institutions in this respect. The few cities which are able to point to great achievements in this field are the very exceptions which serve to prove the rule. They do so in the most convincing manner, and incidentally bring home to us very vividly the enormous wealth which we are deliberately throwing away through lack of enterprise and adequate organization.

The system is responsible for this deplorable state of affairs. The average municipal engineer, even if anxious to excel in this province, finds himself hampered at every turn. He is not vested with sufficient authority or freedom to carry any carefully prepared scheme into operation without the sanction of this, or that, Committee which, as a rule, is notorious for its lack of practical knowledge, more particularly in all matters pertaining to the value of waste. Then the multiplicity of officials and their salaries reacts against every possibility of a scheme being turned into a financial success.

It is a matter for serious discussion as to whether our whole system of waste recovery, in so far as it affects municipalities, should not be overhauled from top to bottom—even superseded. It should be entrusted to private enterprise acting under licence. Were such a force encouraged we might safely anticipate the provision of well-equipped comprehensive plants, similar to those which I have described, for the treatment of waste of every description incurred within the district in which it operates. To this centre should be borne refuse of every description for segregation and preparation for the mills of industry. Private enterprise, from its close contact with the markets, would be able to set prices at which it would be prepared to purchase waste of every description from a dog-mauled bone to a worn-out scrubbing-brush; a discarded daily paper to an abandoned straw hat or pair of tattered boots.