Waste

“ The house stood--if anything so old and feeble could be said to stand--on a piece of waste ground, blighted with the unwholesome smoke of factory chimneys, and echoing the clank of iron wheels and rush of troubled water. ”

“ HOW WE WASTE THREE-FOURTHS OF OUR MONEY The waste of Nature is great, and seems unavoidable: it is Nature's way. She is prodigal of time, of material, of life itself; and seems to have unlimited supplies to draw from. But the waste in our human processes is conspicuously absurd. ”

“ Pinched with famine, exhausted with fatigue, with evening approaching, and a wintry wild still lengthening as they advanced, they began to look forward with sad forebodings to the night's exposure upon this frightful waste. ”

“ What could strike one more, for the immense occasion, than the measure that might be involved in it of desolating and heart-breaking waste, waste of quality, waste for that matter of quantity, waste of all the rich redundancies, all the light and all the golden store, which up to then had formed the very price and grace of life? ”

“ our young affections run to waste, Or water but the desert: whence arise But weeds of dark luxuriance, tares of haste, Rank at the core, though tempting to the eyes, Flowers whose wild odours breathe but agonies, And trees whose gums are poison; ”

“ And the Lord shall guide thee continually and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones; and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not. And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places; thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations ”

“ How the waste places are pleading dumbly for the treasure that lies there in abundance, stored as it were in the seedvessels of God's garden that have not been broken, not emptied for His world, not freed for His use. ”

“ We must have seen the treeless waste, the blazing sun, the sickening glare, the choking dust, the parched rocks, the distant mountains quivering as in the vapour of a furnace; we must have felt the lassitude of heat, the torment of thirst, ere we can welcome, as did those old Easterns, the well dug long ago by pious hands, whither the maidens come with their jars at eventide, when the stone is rolled away, to water the thirsty flocks ”

“ For the contentions that loosen the very foundations of love, that crumble away all its fine traceries and carved work, about what miserable, worthless things do they commonly begin!—a dinner underdone, too much oil consumed, a newspaper torn, a waste of coal or soap, a dish broken!—and for this miserable sort of trash, very good, very generous, very religious people will sometimes waste and throw away by double-handfuls the very thing for which houses are built, and coal burned, and all the paraphernalia of a home established,—their happiness. ”

“ Here, too, we find in this fearful waste, this howling wilderness, this country vast and desert idle, places scooped out of the solid rock, and the mighty foundations of the round world laid bare, that the lower organism of God's human family may find their proper sustenance ”

“ Waste is merely raw material in the wrong place. In the spirit fostered by our traditional improvidence we have sought to adapt another existing term to meet the situation. We glibly dismiss waste as rubbish. It is not, but because we have been too indolent to occupy our minds in the elaboration of further possible applications for what we do not actually require for conduct of the operations with which our individual exertions are identified, we seek to satisfy our consciences in the easiest manner. ”

“ One is constantly reminded of the infinite lavishness and fertility of Nature—inexhaustible abundance amid what seems enormous waste. And yet when we look into any of her operations that lie within reach of our minds, we learn that no particle of her material is wasted or worn out. It is eternally flowing from use to use, beauty to yet higher beauty; and we soon cease to lament waste and death, and rather rejoice and exult in the imperishable, unspendable [Pg 243] ”

“ Looking around one could see church spires rising in the distance from the white patches of houses, and by degrees the tracks across the fertile waste became apparent, and then carts and horses were seen toiling through the rich soil. ”

“ Of all wastes, the greatest waste that you can commit is the waste of labour. If you went down in the morning into your dairy, and you found that your youngest child had got down before you; and that he and the cat were at play together, and that he had poured out all the cream on the floor for the cat to lap up, you would scold the child, and be sorry the milk was wasted. But if, instead of wooden bowls with milk in them, there are golden bowls with human life in them, and instead of the cat to play with—the devil to play with ”

“ And that destruction, a most senseless and cruel waste, has had a proportionate increase, year by year, far in excess of the pro rata of our new buildings or indeed of many other details of our rapid growth. In this country we deal in big figures and it would almost seem as if we were as proud of our appalling wastes as we are of our mammoth productions. ”

“ So long as the phenomena of waste and repair are in harmony—so long, in other words, as the builder follows the scavenger—so long man exists in integrity and repair—just, indeed, as houses exist. Derange nutrition, and at once degeneration, or rather let us say, alteration begins. ”

“ These complex issues being satisfactorily settled the exploitation of the erstwhile waste, or rubbish, is energetically pursued. It has now become a potentially valuable by-product, and, accordingly, must be worked for all it is worth. ”

“ We shall study how we may make the most of [Pg 9] all that nature has given us and develop our country to the highest possible point, how we may rise far above our present level in comfort, convenience, and abundance, and yet do all these things with much less waste than we now permit. ”

“ Were I a farmer or an architect, I might discuss the question of the relative superiority of different manures, or the kind of structures in which the more unpleasant kinds should be stowed; but my object is rather to draw attention to the advantages of making use of products which are not merely waste at present, but very destructive to human life under the existing system. ”

“ At this moment the country, with its waste, unreaped crops, tying in a state of plashy and fermenting ruin, and its desolate and wintry aspect, was in frightful keeping with the appearance of the people when thus congregated together. ”

“ All round them, by day, by night, stretches the huge, grey, grimy waste of streets, factory walls, chimneys, murky canals, [Pg 183] chapels, public-houses, hoardings, posters, butchers' shops—a waste where nothing beautiful exists save a pretty cat or pigeon, a blue sky, perhaps, and a few trees and open spaces. The children of the class above, too, of the small shop-people, the artisans—do they escape? ”

“ This notion, then, of the improbability of there being, in the universe, so vast an amount of waste spaces, or waste bodies, as is implied in the opinion that the earth alone is the seat of life, or of intelligence, is confuted by the fact, that there are vast spaces, waste districts, and especially waste times, to an extent as great as such a notion [Pg 127] deems improbable. The avoidance of such waste, according to our notions of waste, is no part of the economy of creation, so far as we can discern that economy, in its most certain exemplifications. ”

“ May it not be that evolution has followed upon a course of waste deliberately willed and insisted on—and that without such waste, life—even material life—had not evolved to its present stage?
We see a certain wastefulness attaching to many of the most beautiful biological manifestations in the world. ”

“ And he answered, "Until cities be waste without inhabitant, and houses without man, and the land become utterly waste, and the Lord have removed men far away, and the forsaken places be many in the midst of the land." ”

“ Every waste on earth must be peopled, rocks removed, lakes and rivers everywhere connected; a portion of the soil must be awarded to every human being; the teeming hosts of the living must far outnumber the multitudes who have perished ”

“ To make one-half of the human race consume all their energies in the functions of housekeeper, wife, and mother, is a waste of the most precious material that God ever made. ”

“ Fields rescued by themselves from the waste should ripen under their own eyes. Thus, with a rude plenty, care and luxury alike cut off, no heartburnings, no vanity, a cultivated temper and coarse raiment—they and their families, and some neighbours of kindred dispositions, would really enjoy the earth, and the being God had given them. ”

“ The need of conspicuous waste, therefore, stands ready to absorb any increase in the community's industrial efficiency or output of goods, after the most elementary physical wants have been provided for. ”

“ We waste the mineral resources of the country and the fertility of the soil, but our most scandalous waste is of our children, most of all of those who might become men and women of performance and of genius. ”

“ All these and a certain weirdness of beauty difficult to define give these great wastes a peculiar attraction of their own which only those who have spent much time there can understand and appreciate. ”

“ BY-PRODUCTS FROM THE WASTE-BIN
The exploitation of waste presents grand opportunities for pioneer research and investigation, not only to the chemist, but also to the layman who is fruitful of thought. In the praiseworthy determination to turn residues to advantage there is a tendency to follow the path of least resistance, and to apply them to the fields which most readily suggest themselves. ”

“ If the scrupulous husbanding of waste refuse so universally practiced in these countries reduces the fly nuisance and this menace to health to the extent which our experience suggests, here is one great gain. ”

“ Prosperous rural communities with thousands of happy, rosy-cheeked children, blooming orchards, broad, fertile fields prolific beyond comparison, and flourishing cities replace wastes of sand and sage-brush. ”

“ A more recent writer comments instructively on "French Thrift and British Waste":
"In a French household such a thing as waste is almost unknown. The positive waste of odds and ends in this country is simply appalling. Look not only under the vegetable stalls in our streets, but also in almost all dustbins, and you will see as much as, if it had been kept clean, might have given health literally to thousands of people. ”

“ We talk glibly of exploiting waste, but how many products entering intimately into our everyday life are being passed through the mill of reclamation? A little reflection will speedily exhaust the list. If we look around we can satisfy ourselves how much and what a variety of substances are still being permitted to run to utter loss. We have not yet found a use for spent matches, or a means of retipping those which have been scarcely lighted, despite the fact that this indispensable attribute to modern civilization has increased from 300 to 800 per cent. ”

“ The purpose of these chapters is to present the characteristics of these waste places. Most of them have been conquered by man, and their resources have been opened wide to the world. Possibly others yet remain to be conquered, but "what man has done, man can do." ”

“ It is probable that not one crumb of bread consumed is otherwise than good, and that not one single crumb is wasted. The waste is in the system—and a gigantic waste it is, whether inevitable as some contend, or capable of being superseded by a different plan. ”

“ Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours; ”

“ Physical waste is bad enough—- the waste of strength and health that could easily be retained by fresh air, open spaces, and decent food, and is so retained among well-to-do children. This physical waste has already created such a broad distinction that foreigners coming among us detect two species of the English people. But the mental waste is worse. It is a subject that Mr. ”

“ Their sense of cleanliness, too, is quite extraordinary; everything is removed that might be in the way, and the rubbish and waste bits made by those that are at work within, is all collected into one spot, and on stormy days, when they are obliged to cease their ordinary labors, they employ themselves in carrying it out. ”

“ The reclamation and exploitation of waste products for a variety of industrial uses constitute one of the most fascinating and increasingly important developments in modern industry. It is a subject of which very little is known outside privileged circles, and the possibilities of which are but scantily appreciated by the average individual. ”

“ Said Iron-face: ‘Thou sayest well, son, and since the day is now worn past noon, and these folk are but just come from the Waste, therefore such as we have of meat and drink abideth them. And surely there is within our house a coffer which belongeth to thee and me; and forsooth I know not why we keep the treasures hoarded therein, save that it be for this cause: that if we were to give to our friends that which we ourselves use and love, which would be of all things pleasant to us, if we gave them such goods, they would be worn and worsened by our use of them. ”

“ Nothing should be put into ashcans except ashes. Garbage is the waste from food, or any substances which are wet or subject to decomposition. Trash is papers, cans, bottles, egg shells, glass, hair, dust, broken objects of all sorts and kindred things. This class may have to be subdivided several times for the convenience of people who remove it, but the three main divisions in house waste are made not on account of requirement but for the sake of neatness and decency. ”