Moment in Time (July 1, 2021)

During World War II, Japan invaded Southeast Asia and cut off supplies of tin and rubber that were used in many industries throughout the world, including in the U. S. Therefore, in January 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the War Production Board (WPB), whose role included allocating resources such as steel, aluminum and rubber.

World War II flyers depicting the process for recycling tin cans to be used in the war effort were distributed to communities by the federal War Production Board.

That same year, official instructions were distributed to certain districts where tin can collections were authorized by the WPB. Information was made known that tin was an important metal for industry, and sources of it were cut off for the United States by the war (nearly 90 percent of the nation's tin came from Malaya near Kuala Lumpur and was used in many war industries.)

Shortages that developed resulted in salvaging efforts never used before the war. The monthly quota that was set was one ton of fully "prepared" tin cans per 1,000 population. In fact, on Oct. 19, 1942, the War Production Board mandated that every town with a population greater than 25,000 had to have a tin-can collection process.

Tin cans had never been salvaged commercially to any large extent; therefore the salvage effort was promoted as a patriotic duty, and the volunteer effort was coordinated through salvage committees, defense councils and municipal authorities.

Citizens participated in scrap drives to collect materials. They recycled scrap metal (for bombs, ammunition, tanks, guns and battleships), rubber (for gas masks, life rafts, cars and bombers), paper, fats and tin.

Promotion of this recycling effort included creative posters on recycling various scrap materials that emphasized the connection between recycling and the war effort. The leaflet pictured here showing the can recycling process (top left to lower right) is in the collection of memorabilia of Alleyne Higgs Jones donated to the Historical Society portraying life in the 1940s in Grandview Heights and Marble Cliff.