Cotton Waste

COTTON WASTE. In popular use this term covers a variety of different forms of cotton, from the loose tufts which litter the streets of every cotton town in the United States, or of Liverpool, to the bundles of odds and ends of yarn with which an engineer wipes his hands or rubs down his engine. In the cotton trade, however, the definition of cotton waste is rather more restricted, and the various uses to which it is put are much more valuable.

Cotton waste in the technical sense includes the by-products or rejected material of every process through which the raw cotton passes, from its entry into the mill until its final exit in the shape of cloth; and every one of these has its uses and its value, which depend on the stage of manufacture at which it is produced, and, of course, also on the price of raw cotton at the time. During the World War years and' the post-War boom, and at other periods of scarcity, the waste from high-grade Egyptian cottons attained a higher value than raw cotton from America and India; whilst in years of plenty the lower classes of waste have so little market value that they are burnt to get rid of them if they cannot be used for fuel or disposed of for what value they may have as manure.

Soft Waste.

The amount of waste in different processes de pends on the character of the original cotton and the degree of "carding" or "combing" (extraction of staple shorter than the desired length) through which the cotton is put. Thus from good American cotton 14% to 17% of waste is produced in the making of carded yarns and only 3% to 5% is without value. From the machines in the blowing room, the contents of the various dust and dirt collecting boxes and the extremely short fibres carried away by fans have little or no value ; but droppings from the beater and also from the carding machine are used again for the fibre recovered from them. From the carding engine also, fly and strips of considerable value are procured-5% to 7% of the weight and worth 3o% to so% of the value per lb. of the raw cotton. A further 2% of waste is obtained before the cotton is spun or twisted. From Egyptian and Sea Island cotton 2o% to 4o% of waste is produced e.g., from the combing machine 1o% to 20% of the weight and these combings may be worth half the original value of the cotton per lb. All such wastes are known as "soft," i.e., unspun waste, and in this form are easily worked into cloths of moderate value. The waste swept from the floors of the cardroom and spinning-rooms has also a saleable value and can, after sorting, be mixed with soft wastes.

Hard Waste.

From spun or twisted yarns "hard waste" is produced at the spinning-machines from faulty cops, cop bottoms, and broken threads, whilst in the doubling trade still harder waste is produced from breakages and faulty material, to which may be added similar waste from machines which convert the yarns into various forms for different trades. Cop bottoms can be broken up by special machines and mixed with soft waste, but the greater portion of hard waste is useful only for cleaning, wiping and polishing purposes.

The working of soft wastes forms a very important part of the cotton trade, special machinery having been constructed to deal with it. After willowing, opening and carding, the prepared sliver is spun on the condenser mule, which is an adaptation of the woollen system, or by the "coiler" or "preparation" method— more closely allied to cotton spinning. The first method gives a softer and more level yarn than the latter, which is used where strength is important. Waste yarns from both systems are, how ever, invariably used for the weft of fabrics, as the strength of the yarn is insufficient for a warp thread. Excellent quilts, sheet ings, lenos, repp, carriage cloths, cretonnes and towellings are produced, and the full soft feel of waste yarns makes them very suitable for flannelette and for cotton blankets.

Candle wicks, ropes, banding and sponge cloths are made from waste, to which must be added wadding, absorbent surgical cotton and gun cotton from soft waste and linters ; and, to an ever increasing extent in recent years, artificial silk. The various types of machinery used for hard and soft waste respectively may be summarized as follows:— Hard Waste.—Opening and willowing machine; breaking up machine with soaping apparatus ; single beater scutcher ; single breaker carding engine; derby doubler for laps; single finisher carding engine with condenser; self-acting mule for condenser bobbins or, alternatively, after finisher carding engine ; slubbing frame for roving in place of condenser bobbins; self-acting mule and/or continuous ring spinning frame.

Soft Waste.

Willowing machine; thread extractor; pickering machine ; single beater scutcher ; single breaker carding engine, connected by Scotch feeder to a single finisher carding engine fitted with (a) Ring doffer, or (b) Leather tape condenser; self actor mule and/or continuous ring spinning frame. For wadding and surgical cotton and for the cleaning of oily wastes an excep tionally efficient bleaching plant is also required to render the final product suitable for medical purposes.

The cotton waste spinning trade of Lancashire is very consider able, but by far the greater amount of waste produced there, as well as waste from the mills of the United States, is used in Holland, Germany, Austria, and other European countries, mixed in many cases with short stapled Indian cotton. A special small ware weaving industry exists for the manufacture of tapes, lamp wicks, hose piping, braids, cords, webbing and braces, in which specially constructed looms are employed and in which, when required, a separate arrangement for the rubber threads is pro vided. Radcliffe (Lancashire) is the chief centre of this small ware industry.