1.
SV Automobiles on conveyor belt in Chicago for scrap metal.
0.10

2.
SV Crane lifting pulverised cars.
0.13

3.
SV shredded metal on conveyor belt.
0.18

4.
CU ZOOM OUT upholstery pile from cars.
0.27

5.
SV Interiors of wrecked cars (2 shots)
0.32

6.
SV Scrap iron on conveyor.
0.37

7.
SV Steel mill furniture an workers (3 shots)
0.53


Cars on conveyor belt for scrap metal; crane raises crushed cars; piles of car upholstery; wrecked cars; steel mill furnaces.




Initials APSM/2232 APSM/2325



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: Scrap-iron is big business in the United States of America. Prices are soaring and easy-to-get-at mounds of scrap metal are being ravaged in the quest to get in on the old-iron boom.

A world-wide demand for steel has created a big need for the piles of broken cars, ancient refrigerators and any cast-off metal. prices for scrap iron have doubled in the past year.

At a scrap yard in Chicago, a giant conveyor belt and combined crusher-sorter works full-time gorging itself with metallic waste. There are 75 such operations throughout the country. At the end of the conveyor-belt is a shredder. This separates the iron from the unusable waste. The swarf, upholstery from cars and other bric-a-brac of metal creations is shipped off to be used as sanitary landfills. Aluminium, zinc, copper and brass are sent to the smelters for recycling.

North America is an Alladin's Cave of scrap-iron. The nation produces the metal scrap in vast quantities daily. Dotted around all over the country are small fortunes in the shape of metal graveyards. At the moment, much of it is untouchable - there just isn't the equipment to sort and move it. But with the soaring prices those hard-to-get-at scrap piles are sure to act as magnets for fortune hunters.