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 As in the case of all materials, metals used in

production have been neither created nor destroyed; but,

unlike other materials, the period of time during which

they have retained their usefulness has been very long.

Copper mined hundreds of years ago may still be in use.

But, easy access to new supplies makes the maintenance

of old supplies less pressing than it otherwise would

be; and an abundance of metal can result in an abundance

of waste, since ease of acquisition means lower cost of

new metals relative to the cost of recycling old metals.

 The amount of metal lost each year could be

reduced, but, although conservation of an existing metals

stock can reduce new materials requirements, economic

growth of the kind the United States has known requires

new metal.

 To illustrate the point, suppose for a moment

that all mining were to cease. The only metals then

available would be those already in use. Since new

metals would be unavailable, the price of scrap metals

would increase markedly as producers turned from raw

materials sources to scrap. With scrap made valuable,

less would be discarded and more would be saved.

Increases in scrap prices would tend to induce changes

in applied technology so as to bring about efficient

use of scrap on the one hand and a reduction in costs

of scrap collection and processing on the other.