My Dad tells me that during WWII, the government sponsored all kinds of collection programs-for stuff like scrap aluminum, copper pipes, rubber tires, other assorted stuff. Were these drive cost effective? it seems to me that these things could work in a big city, but not so much in rural areas. Anyway, did these “scrap” drives succeed in alleviating raw materials shortages, in any significant way? Like, wht could you do with scrap tires? even today, they are almost impossible to recycle. and stuff like iron/steel scrap-wouldn’t it make more sense just to emty out the loacl junkyard-rather than having teachers collect pices of scrap brought in to school by kids?
Well we won didn’t we? 
I think a couple of factors figured in here. One, by having kids bring in stuff to school that was already or easily sorted out greatly saved saved on the labor involved in breaking down cars into separate materials in the refining process. A little copper in your steel can be a bitch to clear out.
Also, I believe that tires at the time were not steel belted and had rubber tubing as well. This made there reuse/recycling much easier. It also gave the civilians a common goal to work towards to make them feel that they were involved in the war. The propaganda machine was in full force during the war and keeping peoples interest in investing in war bonds and scrape drives was as much for the nations morale as it was for the raw goods and money.