The rate of increase in demand for newly-mined copper has declined since the First World War. One cause of this, as indicated in a forthcoming RFF study of Changes in the Price and Cost of Copper from 1870 to 1957, by Orris C. Herfindahl, is the increasing importance of copper recovered from old scrap. Scrap in this sense includes both refined copper and copper recovered in alloys. Another factor in the decline of copper demand has been the decreasing price of aluminum.
Copper recovered from old scrap accounted for 18 percent of apparent consumption in the United States in 1908-14; 29 percent in 1919-29; 39 percent in 1930-39. Since the Second World War, however, in the period 1947-56, old scrap has made up only 26 percent of the apparent consumption.
A version of this article appeared in print in the September 1959 issue of Resources magazine.
