WEALTH IN SCRAP

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 November 1940, Page 6

WEALTH IN SCRAP

TRANSVAAL STEEL INDUSTRY. 25,000 TONS COLLECTED. Scrap metal from all parts of the country is being turned into bomb cases and other products to help in arming the Union of South Africa for defensive and offensive operations in the war. The scrap comes from the graveyards of old motor-cars, from junk heaps on the farms, from rubbish heaps in the towns and from the dumping-ground of derelict engines and coaches in railway yards. The owners of scrap metal, whether farmers or industrialists, are realising that there is gold in their rubbish heaps. They have already contributed more than 25,000 tons of scrap in four months and the quantity is still growing. They are being paid 30s a ton on delivery at the nearest railway station. From there the scrap is trucked night and day to several big iron and steel works in the Transvaal. But the huge electric furnaces have an insatiable appetite. More scrap metal and still more is needed. The manufacture of steel and iron products in vast quantities is essential to the protection of the country and for 'its industrial needs under wartime conditions, and the great steelworks are working overtime to cope with that demand.

A number of the steel works have more than 10.000 tons of scrap metal in their yards, waiting to be transformed into steel; yet they can cope with four times that, volume and production is being steadily speeded up. Output has been doubled and even quadrupled since the war was intensified and the Union has had to rely more on her own production.