AUTOMOBILE JUNKYARDS 405 



wagon who picks up rags, bottles, and some metals, both ferrous 

 and nonf errous, and brings the metal portion of it to the scrap proces- 

 sor. The junk dealer has very little money, either in land or in equip- 

 ment. The auto wrecker is of two kinds, the licensed, legitimate auto 

 wrecker, who sells parts that are purchased by people who can do 

 their own repairs and the casual auto wrecker who has a yard where 

 one can go with his wrench and chisel and take his part. He is the 

 man that is causing a great deal of the problem for us today. 



In an effort to reach a solution we in the iron and steel scrap 

 processing industry held our own national conference on auto salvage 

 here in Washington last year, to discuss what could be done about 

 the vast volume of old cars which faces us today, and the problems 

 of beautification which these bring in their train. We in the Insti- 

 tute are the scrap processors who chew up the old cars and get the 

 material back to the steel mills and the foundries, where it is re- 

 melted to make new steel. 



We are disturbed at the spreading blight of auto graveyards and 

 the increasing abandonment of old cars on our streets and our high- 

 ways. We can see a good use for this scrap not only as businessmen 

 who process the raw material, but and I stress this as conserva- 

 tionists, who feel strongly that every effort should be made to use this 

 material. It represents iron ore, coal, and limestone wrested from 

 our dwindling natural resources. And it can be used in greater 

 quantities as scrap, if means are found to speed up the flow. 



Our people every year handle some 35 to 40 million tons of proc- 

 essed steel and iron scrap for domestic and foreign use. We could 

 handle more. We want to handle more. 



We feel the beautification of auto wrecking yards can be accom- 

 plished. For example, Federal and State highway departments 

 should immediately move to use funds through Federal road pro- 

 grams available for landscaping to purchase strips of land along the 

 roads to screen the yards or to make it possible to move graveyards 

 to other locations. 



We believe it will help if the yard operators are given some in- 

 centive to do the job on their own and that they should be permitted 

 to move where this is necessary. Beautification and removal of old 

 cars to new locations, however, are of themselves not enough. As 

 a basic resource of this Nation, this material should be recycled to 

 steelmaking in greater quantity. 



The suggestions I now offer relate to five areas affecting this prob- 

 lem. First, the need for increased steel mill consumption. Second, 



