SUPPLIES OF METAL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22779, 15 January 1936, Page 7

SUPPLIES OF METAL

MEETING JAPAN’S REQUIREMENTS TIN SCRAPS EXPORTED (Special to Daily Times) AUCKLAND, January 14. Not only in shiploads of discarded rails, cracked locomotive wheels, and German field guns captured by the Anzacs does Japan import scrap metal from New Zealand. The Japanese motor ship Sydney Maru, which sailed this afternoon, took 90 bales, each weighing over 2cwt, of scraps of thin sheet iron coated with tin, left over from the manufacture of tin containers. The Melbourne Maru last month took 1208 of these bales. Last year's export of these scraps from Auckland amounted to over 900 tons, which returned a price running well into four figures, though dealers are reluctant to give the actual amount. In addition to those firms who manufacture tin containers, several large meat canning companies and jam manufacturers make their own tins. From all of these metal scraps are collected. An hydraulic press packs and binds the scraps into " packets ” 2ft square by about Sin deep, each “ uacket ” weighing from 2ewt to 3cwt. Before the Great War Germany was a buyer, but in post-war years German currency became so deflated that, although that country was still a bidder for New Zealand scrap metal, exporters would not deal, and many tons of tinned scrap metal went into rubbish tips. Then Japan came into the market, outbidding the would-be buyers from Germany with wellestablished letters of credit, and the export of scrap metal to Japan commenced.