(2 of 2)
Another idea for getting more scrap is to put a lot more U.S. citizens into the scrap-gathering business. American Rolling Mill Co. made one start in this direction last week when it began its private drive—modeled after last month's OPM aluminum campaign—for old auto fenders, lawn mowers, fenceposts, garbage cans. The drive began in Middletown, Ohio, where the shortage threatened to curtail Armco operations within two weeks. Within a few days Middletown residents had turned in 400 tons, and the drive was extended to an Armco plant at Ashland, Ky. OPM's Conservation Chief Robert McConnell pondered plans—originally suggested by a scrap-industry advisory committee—for doing the same thing on a nationwide scale. (England and Germany have melted down statues and park fences.) There are some 4,000,000-7,000,000 cars in automobile graveyards, each the potential source of 1,500 Ib. of iron and steel scrap. Most of these "junkers" lie around for years, waiting possible sale of the parts, before being turned into scrap at the rate of about 2,500,000 a year. The scrap industry wants the rate stepped up to 3,500,000 a year. As an experiment, OPM last week extracted a promise from Ohio wreckers to speed their work, will adopt the plan generally over the U.S. if it works.
Bethlehem's Grace suggested that the U.S. curtail shipments to Britain of scrap and unfinished steel (whose processing leaves over a residue of high-grade scrap). Another proposal came from the railroads, who have hundreds of thousands of tons of rails on unprofitable, seldom-used lines which they would like to abandon (see p. 62}. Pulling up the tracks for which railroads already have filed abandonment applications with ICC, it was estimated by the A.A.R., would produce 126,000 tons of scrap.
Only alternate to scrap is pig iron; the nation's steel mills now use about 56% pig iron and 44% scrap as their basic raw material. But the pig-iron situation is even worse than the scrap; there is a shortage of 5,000,000 tons this year. Curtailment of auto production, which used 1,234,000 net tons of iron in engine blocks, etc. in 1939, will relieve part of this shortage.
New pig iron is harder to get than old scrap. OPM last month recommended a Government-financed $175,000,000 expansion to boost pig-iron capacity by 6,508,950 tons to 64,500,000. Last week Federal Loan Administrator Jesse Jones announced the first loan—$32,000,000 for a Carnegie-Illinois plant (about 860,000 net tons capacity) at Braddock, Pa. But it will take one to two years to complete this program. The same day that Jesse Jones announced the Carnegie-Illinois loan, OPM had to put pig iron under full priority control to make sure it went into steel for defense.