For plastics the situation is even worse because the baled plastics have been exported to lower labour cost countries for “processing” but there’s no money in it so the baled plastics get stored (which is a single product landfill really) or dumped at sea.
That was part of my point about by the pots and pans. Plastic is incredibly cheap to make and we use very little of it per thingamajig. Concentrating the plastic into a re-usable form isn’t easy. We could easily do better but the PR is so comforting that the reality is never allowed to intrude. Sound familiar?
Before we cut them off shortly before the war started, the US used to ship a lot of our scrap metal to Japan. It was mentioned often during the war that a lot of it ended up coming back towards us as bullets and shells.
BTW, re the 4 x 8 sheet of plywood, remember that c. 1941 the top model scale was still O scale (although HO was catching up fast), which meant out of necessity that club layouts were kinda the norm. Most people didn’t have the space or money to build their own home O scale layout. (The start and early years of the NMRA was largely done through various clubs around the country.)
After the war, returning vets used the G.I. Bill to buy new houses in the suburbs - with large basements with gas furnaces - and began turning more to home HO layouts.
That is very true BD. It was not just those on the Allies side (Canada as where where I’m from) those who died who never got to start/continue in the hobby, but those on the axis side as well. Now regardles of the Axis idologies, those soldiers where men and human as well, with interest in trains and model railroaidng as well.
But then again, WW2 did lead to interesting piecetime German, Italian and Japanese trains we see in the hobby today.
I’m sure the morale-boosting “Together we can win” campaign was helpful I do believe the scrap drives did provide a significant contribution to the need for War time production.
Rubber, aluminum, rags and paper didn’t contribute much as these materials were as difficult to “recycle” than as they are today (less-so the aluminum but only “virgin” aluminum could go into aircraft production).
However, steel, iron, tin, copper and lead were easily melted down and was probably helpful in the effort.
An interesting observation:
Useful though recycled steel and iron were, some scrap drives went overboard. In addition to old streetcar tracks, wrought iron fences, church bells, and the like, people carted off relics of previous wars, including cannons, park statues, and other memorials. When the memorials were being rebuilt after the war, many wished they hadn’t been so hasty.
There’s no denying scrap drives and other World War II home-defense efforts were meant in part as morale builders. Some seem pretty loopy in retrospect — air-raid blackouts in Nebraska, for example. But a few were surprisingly effective.
In 1943 victory gardens produced 40 percent of the country’s fresh vegetables. Salvaged kitchen fat was used to produce glycerin, an ingredient in drugs and explosives. Then there’s the Civil Air Pat
Most of the model railroad manufacturers (that were not basement operations) were involved in wartime production. Here is one example- the main compass on the Battleship North Carolina. It you look on the edge it says The Lionel Corporation. (However I do not think if a transformer is attached the ship will start going around in a circle…)
I don’t know about other families, but the men in mine had “other things” to keep them busy during the war years.
My Dad found himself as a Sherman M4 tank commander and spent his war time in New Guinea and the Phillippines and occupied Japan.
My Uncle Frank found himself in England and later on the beaches of Normandy…lasting until D-day plus 7.
Uncle John was 4F, but spent the war years working mega hours as a tool & die maker - helping to build the “Arsenal of Democracy”.
Grandfather Andrew was too old to serve, but he also worked mega hours keeping the boilers running at the Chicago Fox DeLuxe brewery.
So while my family couldn’t participate in extra curricular activities, “Congratulations” to those that had the time and luxury to fret over their hobbies during those years.
You need a bit of scrap steel to make new steel, at least you did in the type of blast furnace used in WWII and still by far the most common in use today.
You don’t need much but you do need some. Steel production increased dramatically in the US during that war and so then did the demand for scrap steel. Normally, scrap steel is easy to come by from normal rates of obsolescence. But during that time the expansion in supply of steel caused supply lines of scrap steel to be stressed. Much of that then new steel lies on the bottom of the sea.
Of interest is the developing scarcity of non radioactive steel. All steel made after 1945 has some level of background radiation going on which makes it unsuitable for some specialized purposes. WWII wrecks are being lifted as a result.
First off, thank you and your family for their service. My grandfather served in the navy and I considered a career in the military, but was denied admittance due to medical reasons.
I don’t think anyone in this thread was trying to detract from the many who gave so much during WW2. Rather, I think that a passing curiosity of a bygone era spurred the creation of this thread. I know that my curiosity was piqued by the seeming lack of use for donated materials. Again, i thank you and your family for your great lineage, and all it has given. This is not in any way a put-down. Just a friendly “hey, I get it, but don’t get too offended by what others say, or post”.
I wanted to point out that the war years were times of extreme difficulties. And, while the thread addresses the supply side of the equation, the fact is a huge percentage of adult men had other things on their mind.
Having said that, we have to pull in the demand side as well.
And that brings to mind that the lack of “toy trains” (vs. scale models) was more of a concern, for there were a lot of kids that couldn’t get their much wanted Lionel or Flyer under the Christmas tree. Lionel did put out a carboard set, but it was a poor substitute.
Well not to bust your bubble but a lot of recycling today is smoke and mirrors. A lot of the stuff we are trying to recycle ends up in the landfills. I have personally seen many trash trucks pick up the so called recycling. Also a lot of other stuff like reusable bags for shopping, did extencive resurch into that for a city council vote, they went with it anyway (this is california) but shoplifiting went up 20% or more in some places (not california specific), bags that were to be reused fell apart with first washing, food poisoning went up, the weight of paper bags increased fuel consumption (by alot), just the production of paper bags incresed pollution by a lot compared to plastic disposable bags, the list is endless. The newest kick out here is all electric homes being required, even though we don’t have enough electrisity as it is.
Watch what happens with the “single use plastics” boondoggle.
Because we conscientiously separate our plastics for recycling they get concentrated instead of dispersed generally through the landfill process. Burying waste actually works, just btw.
Because nobody planned the other end of this process properly these bales of plastic now sit around indefinitely above ground, or worse floating around in the ocean.
Now we’re going to “solve” the problem by banning single use plastics.
Which will increase waste of drinking water as reusable containers get washed, increase waste of paper (trees cut down) and increase risk of illness (how you freeze food adequately without using single use plastic should prove interesting).
Generally speaking, regulating these things is ineffective. Setting standards is the purpose of regulation, not specifying how the standard is to be achieved. Any fool can see what needs to be done. It takes real ability to figure out how to get it done. Just btw, necessity isn’t the mother of invention, laziness is…
Glass bottles used to be washed and re-used without remanufacturing the glass. Beverage makers priced the return value of the used bottle. That was stopped. Regulated bottle deposit schemes were then devised to create a market value for worthless glass (but only for beverages, other types of single use glass are still landfilled). The price of throwing out a glass container has slipped badly behind the inflation rate. Governments should simply pay to obtain all of the disposed of plastic. At the right price nobody will throw away a single ziplock.
Just as wartime propaganda had a significant influence on civilian morale and consequently war production the same techniques could be used to control disposal of waste. Mandatory recycling doesn’t work. Pricing disposal of garbage works (I.e. creating value in the disposal of the garbage itself rather than supplying garbage pickup at a price, c
