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Old 10-10-2020, 01:52 AM   #16
alexiskai
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Default Re: Scrap Drives May Have Trashed Cars, But Were the Drives Necessary?

The scrap drives did not significantly increase the amount of scrap collected as compared to pre-war levels. However, they may have increased the amount collected as compared to a counterfactual in which they never occurred. While we'll never know for sure, we do know that during the war, there was a significant factor decreasing the amount of scrap being collected: price controls.

The following is taken largely from Hugh Rockoff's 2007 paper, Keep on Scrapping: The Salvage Drives of World War II:

The Office of Price Administration, worried that hoarding of scrap could "start an inflationary price spiral whose consequences would have been disastrous for the stabilization program," set scrap price ceilings early and set them low. "Iron and steel scrap prices were placed under control in April 1941, well before Pearl Harbor, and were not freed until November 1946." These controls made seeking out and collecting scrap unprofitable for small dealers, who performed a lot of the "last mile" work of getting scrap to scrapyards. Many of these dealers, in turn, quit the scrap trade and went to work in wartime industries instead.

"Given the steel industry's voracious appetite for scrap... it was nearly inevitable that there would be an iron and steel scrap drive. The first initiatives came from the steel companies and from International Harvester. Then in the summer of 1942 the War Production Board backed these private sector efforts with a call for a national drive...

"Farm country was an especially inviting target for scrap collection because farmers often held on to used farm machinery. International Harvester encouraged the collection of farm scrap and its dealerships served as collection centers. Harvester’s involvement was undoubtedly motivated mainly by patriotism. But it did say that improving the relationships between farmers and Harvester dealers would pay postwar dividends... Farmers normally cannibalized their junked farm machines for used parts to keep older machines running. If the junked machines were scrapped during the war, it would be harder to keep old machines running after the war, forcing farmers to buy new ones."

"Barringer argued that the drives did bring in additional scrap, and estimated that in 1942 and 1943 the salvage drives yielded about 4,000,000 additional tons of scrap. This was about 8.33% of consumption of purchased scrap in 1942 and 1943 and 3.67% of total consumption of scrap." However, "it amounted to about 1.6% of total steel production during the war. To put it in more familiar terms, this was about 24 days of production... it is clear that even in the absence of the patriotic salvage drives the United States would have produced enough scrap iron and steel to supply its steel industry and to equip its fighting forces."

One final note: It's not the case that the aluminum drives, the first of the scrap metal drives, were successful. They produced mostly low-grade aluminum that was wholly unsuitable for aircraft. "It turned into a fiasco, with great piles of pots and pans languishing in collection points because no one would cart the stuff away, and anyhow, its value in plane production was nonexistent."
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