Let us consider the despised homely cinders as an illustration of how we permit wicked waste to reign in the household circle. According to the table they represent approximately two-fifths of the total contents of the dust-bin, and make up the respectable aggregate of 3,700,000 tons a year for the whole country. As a straight fuel the cinder is but slightly inferior to coal. When washed its calorific value is about 10,000 British Thermal Units. Good steam coal only averages 14,000 British Thermal Units. Accordingly the spurned cinder, from the heat-raising point of view, is worth about five-sevenths of coal drawn fresh from the mines. The householders of Britain have been content to throw away 37,000,000,000 British Thermal Units every year in ignorance. Translated into terms of coal this is equivalent to 2,642,857 tons. In other words we have wasted what is tantamount to two-and-a-half millions of high-grade coal every year, and have spent money on fuel which we might just as well have kept in our pockets or have turned to other beneficial purposes. Obviously, if every house undertook to turn its cinders to full account, the domestic call upon the mines might be materially reduced, while there would be an appreciable contribution to the conservation of our coal resources from such a practice. Paper is another commodity which, in the past, we have handled along woefully improvident lines, as related in the previous chapter. We have not even taken the trouble to burn it, but have permitted it to drift and flutter hither and thither to find a final repository, grievously soiled and dirty, in the dust-bin. But even when so marred and deteriorated it was worth, during the war period, no less than £7--$35--a ton! The wastage of rags, both cotton and woollen, has been even more deplorable. In this instance, however, possibly a reasonable excuse for the prompt consignment of such material to the dust-bin and the dust-destructor can be advanced. Popular opinion regards textile odds and ends as an ideal vehicle for the transmission of the germs of disease. Yet such does not justify the indiscriminate committal of material worth £15--$75--per ton to incineration. Infected rags should be burned forthwith in the household fire. But are they? Investigation would probably reveal the disconcerting fact that they are thrown into the dust-bin, as offering the most convenient means of disposal. Even if they should be above suspicion when discarded, the chances are that they become contaminated in the ash-barrel. Consequently upon recovery such materials should be subjected to preliminary inexpensive sterilization to ensure the public safety. When the necessity to practise household salvage upon a comprehensive scale became imperative, a few discreet inquiries were made to secure reliable statistics as to what wealth is ignored or thrown away by the community of these islands. The results were somewhat surprising.