Waste

[alatar]

Been reading about the history of steel production in Europe. Names like Huntsman, Krupp, Schneider and Armstrong might be familiar. What was striking to me is that, you don't even have to go all the way back to "Damascus steel" to find people creating iron and steel in what we might consider very primitive conditions; almost in the backyard shed, one might say. Truly amazing, considering that many of us today would be at a loss constructing a simple tool out of wood and stone.

I live in the rusted remains of one of America's steel towns. Most of the mills (or 'works,' as some of you might say) are gone, replaced by strip malls made from imported steel. There's still a coke works (coal is transformed into coke, which is used to make steel) in operation, though not running at the capacity that it was during my youth (plus they've cleaned the place up a bit). Yet, when I see the works, especially at night, I cannot help but think of Mordor.

With the right wind we can smell the waste products of the furnaces, and there's always a black dust coating my world in the morning.

The elves, dwarves and men of Middle Earth made things of iron and steel. The Enemy (pick one) did as well. We know what the Dark Ones did with all of their industrial waste.

What did the others* do with theirs?

*I'll even grant that the elves and dwarves used some type of process that produced no waste, or that the waste products were carried away and dropped into volcanoes by friendly winged balrogs. But men?

[Rumil]

Hi Alatar,

interesting question!

I'm also familiar with the slag heaps, coal mines and steelworks from South Wales.

There's an old joke- Two blokes come out of the pub so drunk that they don't know what time of day it is 'Is that the moon Dai, or is that the Sun?' 'Dunno' says Dai, 'Lets ask this bloke by here'. The bloke answers - 'Dunno either, but I'm not drunk, I'm from Port Talbot'.

(Port Talbot being the big steelworks where it was believed you could never see the sun or moon due to the smoke).

Now I think JRRT was trying to emphasise the difference between industrial production and what you might call 'cottage industry'. Industrial production, ie Mordor, Isengard, Pennsylvania, S Wales etc was on such an enormous scale that the landscape itself is radically changed and scarred. Cottage-scale metalworking, a product of craft by one or a few men rather than a full industry, doesn't make the same scale of mess.

I suppose Rohan, Gondor, Rivendell and most big-ish communities had specialist swordsmiths and armourers, probably running their furnaces on charcoal from the forests. Not too different from the legendary Wayland and his forge. Surely the Shire would have had blacksmiths at least, and likely skilled metal-workers (for umbrellas, clocks etc). I guess the waste would have been disposed of 'somewhere round the back' - can't have metalworking spoiling the gleaming aspect of Minas Tirith after all!

Probably of the free peoples only the Dwarves had metalworking on a medium scale, but their forges were apparently hidden in caverns and fueled on coal (so as not to annoy Yavanna and the ents!) and the waste likewise hidden away presumably. Does make me wonder if Gondor had medium scale metalworking, but confined to an obscure corner of Minas Tirith or one of the outlands.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by alatar

I'll even grant that the elves and dwarves used some type of process that produced no waste, or that the waste products were carried away and dropped into volcanoes by friendly winged balrogs. But men?

If we allow that the Elves used an unknown, ultra-efficient process for their ironworking, I wonder if we could not grant the same licence to the Dúnedain. After all, it seems likely they would have learned metal-work from the Eldar.
If one goes that far, then it should be noted that the other major, warrior-people of Third age Middle-earth were the Rohirrim, who apparently got their weapons and armour from the Dúnedain.

The Rohirrim had the advantage in being supplied by the metal-workers of Gondor.

UT The Battles of the Fords of Isen (footnote 11)

What other settlements of Men were there in that time? The Men of Bree apparently had no great store of metal weapons and armour, as Butturbur had only a club with which to fight the Ruffians. What metal crafts they did require probably came from the Dwarves.
Same goes for the Men of Dale, who had the Lonely Mountain for a neighbour.

As for Hobbits, they were said to have forges (by Gandalf). Maybe, along the lines of what Rumil said, they had some out of the way place where the waste was stored, or maybe they buried it.
Also, if they in turn learned their smith-craft from the Dúnedain, maybe they used the same environmentally friendly process.

[alatar]

Thanks for the replies. For the record, Pittsburgh is no longer the smokey city it once was - we have daylight once more.

Now I'll grant that some of the 'iron work' was of the cottage industry type. But I can't see this being the source of the 'forest of spears' and weaponry (forgive me; I'm without a book at the moment) that appears in battle such as when Turgon breaks the leaguer of Gondolin. Or when the Númenóreans march on Middle Earth.

I think that what makes fantasy, well, fantasy is the lack of waste products.

As a child, I read Edgar Rice Burrough's Tarzan books. I tried to live like Tarzan (though I had to go home at night, and avoided all girls, even those named Jane), and had some limited success with mimicking the ape man's arboreal exploits. One thing that always evaded my best efforts was the ability to track my cousins and other wild animals by their 'spore,' or scent. Why, Tarzan could, with a few whiffs, tell what animal went where and when. Me, not so much, no matter how closely I placed my nose to the dirt.

Later it dawned on me what I was missing, besides an acute sense of smell and the ability to speak and read French. The animals and people in Tarzan's world reeked!

They do in Middle Earth as well, but because it's fantasy, we choose to ignore it like the piles of slag and slurry-filled streams beside the armories.

[Findegil]

Even if we consider a kind of preindustrial metal work, that does not mean no waste. Quite the opposite modern industrial processes are more efficient and by that less waste productive. But that is only true if they work with the same ore and other material as did our forefathers. The production of charcoal for example is much more effective and less harmful for the environment now a day then it has been when as a kind of workman ship.

I think that most of the metal used by the Hobbits or by the men of Bree was produced by the Dwarves and traded. Neither the Shire nor Bree-land looks much as if there was iron ore dug out of the ground. But a blacksmith heating up iron to work it in the desired form does by fare not produce as much waste and pollution as does a ironworker by producing iron from ore. A blacksmith doesn't even need coal, a good wood fire might do.

Any way the slag-hills you see in areas of heavy steel industry are normally not really slag produced by steel or iron mills. They are most often the by product of coal mines. That means they are stone that surrounded the coal and was brought up because the industrial mining has a minimum height of the layer it takes out. In addition the industrial mining goes straight while the natural coal layer does not.

The slag produced by iron and steel mills is normally useful. Part of it can be used in the production of cement, a part was even used as mineral fertiliser (today we know that isn't a good idea), and the rest is used in building streets. Thus it really makes sense that Tolkien named the dwarves as the most skilled iron and steel producer and as the most skilled street builders in Middle-Earth.

Respectfully
Findegil

[alatar]

Nice post, Findegil!

Originally Posted by Findegil

Thus it really makes sense that Tolkien named the dwarves as the most skilled iron and steel producer and as the most skilled street builders in Middle-Earth.

The dwarves may have had the most skill, and therefore the most efficient processes, but I don't think that they supplied all of the metalworks in Middle Earth.

The Rohirrim don't seem to like the Dwarves, and surely Sauron would have waylaid any arms shipments between the Lonely Mountain/Iron Hills/Blue Mountains and Denethor's realm if these were Gondor's only source.

Saruman equips his army in metal, and seemingly produces a lot of waste - then again, he didn't care so much. Anyway, his army was small compared to all of the armies that marched out of Minas Tirith, so even if Gondor has a clean process, there'd be some residue somewhere.

Maybe I'm looking for a place in Middle Earth that truly smells like home.

And the new Sandyman mill belched forth foul fumes - what exactly was going on inside?

But again, I think that Tolkien glosses over reality for the good guys - who don't pollute.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by alatar

Saruman equips his army in metal, and seemingly produces a lot of waste - then again, he didn't care so much. Anyway, his army was small compared to all of the armies that marched out of Minas Tirith, so even if Gondor has a clean process, there'd be some residue somewhere.

Honestly, I don't know a great deal about metal-working, but it seems that Saruman, having to start his warmaking capability basically from scratch, would have had a lot of smithying to do to arm his forces in a short period of time.
Gondor, on the other hand, was a well-established realm which had stood for thousands of years. I think it's likely a lot of the weapons and armour used by the Gondorians would have been products of older times, with especially the nobler families retaining swords as heirlooms.
As for the waste from what Gondor did produce, why not some underground storage facilities adjacent to the smithies in the City? Wouldn't that be sufficient to keep the stuff they couldn't recycle?

[Nogrod]

I think the question of quantity might play a major role here.

Looking at a modern industrial city's output of waste and comparing it to a plate- / weaponsmith or two somewhere might be a problematic thing.

I mean, yes modern processes are more efficient and less wasteful, but the quantities for industrial steel fex. are gigantic compared to any medieval (RL or phantasy) produce - maybe not counting Saruman's production?

[alatar]

I think that the number and output of the foundries is insignificant to today's capacity and production, yet Middle Earth's iron and steel (and other metal) production wasn't insignificant. You can't have Dagor Aglareb or War of the Last Alliance without some major weapon and armour production.

And what about tanneries?