Consignments of ham and bacon are often received in heavy quantities at times from the docks. This inedible food is submitted to treatment to secure the various commercial by-products such as oil and grease, the residue being ground up into meal. From the foregoing it will be realized that Liverpool is not permitting much waste of any commercial character to find its way to the incinerator. The wise policy now being pursued is bearing fruit. The prices which have been, and still are being, realized, render the trouble and effort expended well worth while. The meal made from fish offal, after the extraction of the oil, has fetched as much as £25--$125--per ton, while the butchers’ offal, after similar treatment, has commanded an equally satisfactory price. Even the refuse gathered from the households of the city, and capable of being turned into poultry-meal, which exceeds 20 tons a week, is promptly sold at prices ranging up to £15--$75--per ton. The possibilities attending systematic collection from private residences have also been conclusively established, and at the moment the Corporation is gathering a round 1,000 tons of such waste from certain houses in the course of the year. Reclaimed tins, after being washed and dried, have realized up to £8--$40--per ton, while, to meet the enhanced request for organic manure, an excellent fertilizer is being prepared from certain materials which come into the hands of the authorities, or accrue from the practice of waste-reclaiming. The Corporation are able to dispose of this fertilizer with comparative ease at the rate of 50,000 tons during the year. Other towns are able to point to comparable achievements in connection with the exploitation of waste incurred within their areas. Some of the small communities are even able to produce some startling records in this connection. If all our civic and municipal authorities could be brought into line and raised to the productive level of Glasgow or Liverpool, the cumulative benefits to the nation would be enormous and far reaching. But, as yet, only a fraction of what might be secured is being turned to useful account. For instance, it is computed that 3,000 tons of first-class pig-food could be recovered from London alone every week--this in itself would show a heavy yield of fats and greases if properly treated--but at present it is being wasted. Merely because foodstuffs--meat, fish, eggs, fruit, and other commodities innumerable of a perishable nature--are condemned as being unfit for the service of man, that is not to say they have completed their mission in the scheme of things ordained by a so-called high civilization. Doubtless they assist in the manufacture of excellent paving-stones, but although we are in dire need of houses and this is the concrete age, that is not a sufficiently reasonable excuse for withdrawing nitrogenous products from the cycle of Nature. CHAPTER XI POTATO WASTE AS AN ASSET TO INDUSTRY