Cecil wrote: “A 1941 aluminum-scrap drive to help the plucky Brits pulled in 70,000 tons of aluminum pots and pans, but only virgin aluminum could be used to manufacture aircraft.”
This is just a thought, but could not the recycled aluminum have been used for making stuff which would otherwise have consumed virgin aluminum? That in turn would have freed up more virgin aluminum to be available for manufacturing aircraft componants.
An interesting thought. Let me tell you a little about aluminum.
Aluminum used in aircraft requires some specific alloys to be strong enough to do the job. Once the aluminum has been alloyed (the metals mixed), it is darn near impossible to separate them again via refining.
What makes aluminum cans so special (and aluminum foil) is that they are darn near 100% aluminum. Well, as close as these things come; aluminum is actually even in the refined state pretty trashy. I’m talking about at the microscopic level when looking at grain structure.
As for using those aluminum items, I suppose it would depend upon their makeup and how much they are pure aluminum vs. alloys.
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Were WWII scrap drives just a ploy to boost morale? (31-May-2002)
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Irishman wrote:
Were aluminum cans in widespead use before or during WW2? I seem to recall that most drinks were sold in glass bottles or steel cans. (I recall finding an old discarded Coca-Cola can that had steel end-caps without a pull-tab in it – it had been opened by a “church key”.)
And wasn’t foil at the time primarily tinfoil rather than aluminum foil?
In the US, at least, aluminum beverage cans didn’t get going until the late 1950’s. Kaiser Aluminum worked on it through the '50’s, but Aldoph Coors Co. is who really got them to market. An interesting account of their struggles to get aluminum beverage cans working can be found at:
http://www.contextmag.com/setFrameRedirect.asp?src=/archives/200004/BookExcerpt.asp
This link also reports that Coors bought a lot of their equipment form Germany, so other countries might have been ahead of the US in aluminum can technology. The Coors innovation was the ability to make mass-market quantites at competitive prices. This does not rule out that others han been producing smaller runs for years.
A couple of oddities recounted at that link:
Apparently, Coors went first to Alcoa wanting to form a partnership to get cans made and was told it could not be done (at a profit).
Afters years of work and tons of money, they finally got the can manufacture process down pat only to realize they didn’t know how to print the labels on the cans in volume 8-0.
–jack
Tracer, you are correct. I was referring to modern recycling drives for aluminum cans and foil, and why they are very useful. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.
I was about to open a thread questioning the “only virgin aluminum could be used to manufacture aircraft” statement, since it seemed to me odd that it was easier to make “pure” aluminum from mined ore than recycled items, since most of the work is already done in the recycled.
Thanks Irishman for pointing out that it’s very tough to separate alloyed aluminum, I gather tougher than making pure aluminum from ore.
Yes Revtim, normally you are correct. It is cheaper to recycle pure aluminum than refine bauxite.
Once I heard a story. Working in the space industry, we use a large amount of high alloy aluminum (6061, 7075). One time a guy had a leftover chunk, and since we was taking a load of cans in thought it would be interesting to take that excess alloy with him. The guy at the recycling place wouldn’t take it.
Though they do manage to recycle the alloy aluminum into new alloy. Send the scrap 6061 back and get it remelted and made into new stock.
Well, if we’re telling stories…
In 1999, I was trekking in the Everest region in Nepal. Near Jubing I met a couple of Newars coming down the Dudh Khosi valley from the airstrip at Lukla.
I was trying to see what they were carrrying, and when they passed me I finally figured it out: It was crushed up aluminum from the airframe of a helicopter that had crashed on landing at Lukla. The Newars were going to melt it down and turn it into aluminum cookware to sell on their next trip up the valley. (And when I saw that, I began to think that walking in from Jiri instead of flying straight to that Lukla airstrip with the cliff at the end wasn’t such a bad idea after all…)
So, if recyled pots and pans can’t be used to make aircraft, it seems like the reverse is possible…