77
Over the same period the use of scrap steel
increased substantially as well. In 1905, for example,
5.6 million tons of steel scrap were used in the
production of 22.4 million tons of steel. By i960,
66.5 million tons of steel scrap were used along with
66.6 million tons of pig iron in the production of new
47
steel. The importance of scrap drawn from obsolete
sources was somewhat less, however; use of obsolete
48
scrap in i960 amounted to only 19.9 million tons, the
remainder being made up of scrap originating in the steel
plants themselves and in the various places in which
steel scrap was a byproduct of further fabrication.
Although approximately 81 percent of old iron
49
and steel scrap could be reclaimed, for various
a
reasons only about 50 percent of all new supplies of
obsolete scrap steel is brought to the furnace. For
one reason, scrap steel prices tend to be more variable
than are pig iron prices and wide variation makes
47 .
Minerals Yearbook. 1940. p. 502; Minerals
Yearbook, i960, p. 635*
4 3
Landsberg, Resources in America's Future, p. 874.
49
Cf. U.S. Department of Health, Education and
Welfare, Bureau of Solid Waste Management, Comprehensive
Studies of Solid Waste Management (Washington, D.C.:
Government Printing Office, 1970), pp. 106-08; U.S.
Department of the Interior, Bureau of Mines, Automobile
Disposal, A National Problem (Washington, D.C.:
Government Printing Office, 1967) ; Institute of Scrap
Iron and Steel, Inc., Addresses and Proceedings, Annual
Convention (Washington"] D.C. 1964 and 19&5)