410 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY 



wrecking yard is not a thing of beauty but neither are so many other 

 vital industries. The auto wrecker serves an important role in the 

 economy and safety of his community as well as the country at large. 

 With 85 million cars registered in the United States today, and with 

 new car production reaching the 9 million mark, the auto wrecker is 

 still scrapping 6 million cars per year. As the population of the 

 country increases, so does the number of cars on the road. What 

 is more, of the 80 percent of the people who own cars, 22 percent 

 of these own two or more, and this trend is rapidly increasing. 



On the economic side, the auto-wrecking industry is a home-owned 

 business. It employs thousands of workers who earn and spend their 

 salaries in their own communities. The auto wreckers serve a vital 

 need, not only in the community, but in the Nation as a whole, by 

 supplying used parts to motorists who either cannot afford new parts 

 or, in many cases, are unable to obtain them from the car manu- 

 facturer. Millions of dollars are reclaimed by insurance companies 

 who sell the "total loss" wrecked cars to the auto salvage dealers. 

 The scrap the auto wrecker produces goes into the making of new 

 steel and automotive scrap ranks second in supply of scrap metal for 

 new steel production. 



The auto-wrecking industry's participation in keeping America 

 beautiful is twofold : 



1 . To try to find solutions to the problem of the abandoned and 

 junked cars so that they will not be a blight to our country's natural 

 beauty. 



2. To improve the appearance of their places of business in order 

 that they become more compatible with the surrounding areas. 



To accomplish these goals, I would like to make the following 

 proposals : 



1 . That the States modify their motor vehicle legislation to provide 

 a faster and less complicated method of clearing titles to cars which 

 have outlived their usefulness as operative motor vehicles. 



2. To find new methods of disposing of automobile hulks faster 

 and more economically through the development of inexpensive car 

 flatteners, portable balers, and the like. 



3. Further development of scrap-processing equipment which will 

 result in upgrading the quality of automotive scrap so that it will be 

 more acceptable to the steel mills and, as such, will be in greater 

 demand, thereby speeding up the flow of the automobile scrap back 

 to the mills for future production of new steel. 



