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. To a certain degree the action is automatic, from the simple circumstance that supplies are strictly limited. Money does not constitute such a determining factor to-day as was the case five years ago, although of course it still exercises a far-reaching influence. But the mere fact that an adequacy of raw materials cannot be procured merely because one may be disposed to pay fictitious prices, is stimulating interest in the waste issue to a degree which, under conventional conditions, would never have obtained. In times of plenty one does not pause to consider for a moment as to whether it is worth while to devote any time and energy to the exploitation of a certain refuse.