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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    just 640 trucks to comijass London alone. The following particulars are furnished in the report:— The number of boys employed at first was 22, sub- sequently increased to 34; they, with assistants and sorters, received £424 in wages. The average amount expended daily by each truck was 13s. 9d., and the number of separate transactions 9,000, giving an average of about ten per truck daily. The materials collected were of a most heterogeneous character: cocked hats, hearse trappings, old aquariums, and in one bag 1,000,000 postage stamps : in fact, anything that can be got into or on the top of the truck. In one lot of rubbish was found a Bank of England cheque-book (which was at once forwarded to the bank); in another .lalf a dozen pair of new stockings, which were duly re- lUrned, much to the owner's astonishment. The total collection of the four trucks in the first nine months was as follows :— Bottles Paper.. Eags, mixed „ white „ dirty Bones.. Carpet Gullet.. .. Cloth.. ,. Fat, &c. .. Metals Eoi^e .. 82 0 3 27 49,818 Tons. cwts. qrs. lbs. 38 19 1 ]5 9 18 2 22 2 16 0 8 0 16 3 3 8 6 0 7 3 7 2 7 0 11 8 22 4 19 0 2 5 4 3 2 5 17 1 24 1 2 1 27 A-lso, some £70 worth of stuff not bought by weight. Of ihis vast quantity, more than one-half looidd never have found its ivay into the market at all, except for the facilities offered by the brigade. At first a good deal of clothing was brought in, which was sorted and disposed of to the I'agged schools, to be mended by the sewing-classes, and sold at cheap rates to the necessitous poor. But the universal collection for the Lancashire sufferers most effectually stopped the supplies. Nowhere is the class of waste collectors so developed as