2. The Collection of Salvage

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2. THE COLLECTION OF SALVAGE

The question asked was: “Do you collect regularly, sometimes or never - paper, food waste, metal, bones, rags, rubber?”. The same question had been asked in the 1942 inquiry. In Table 1 the results of both inquiries are compared.

Table 1

Those collecting regularly, sometimes or never

	All or Regularly		Sometimes		Never
	1943	1942	1943	1942	1943	1942
	%	%	%	%	%	%
Paper	76	79	11	7	13	14	Sample:
Food Waste	79	72	5	4	16	24	1943	3073
Metal	90	72	3	12	6	16	1942	3028
Bones	56	42	11	11	33	46
Rags	56	10	17	13	27	77
Rubber	32	3	9	8	59	89

In reading the table it must be kept in mind that the figures do not give any information about the quantity of each article salvaged; it only shows the number of people who say that they salvage the particular article.

Paper is salvaged by the same number of people as last year.

The number who collect food waste has slightly increased; the change is statistically significant.

Rags and rubber, which were only collected by a small minority last year, are now salvaged by 56% and 32%.

Metal collectors have increased in number by 18%, bone collection of bones, a second question was asked referring to the previous week only.

Table 2

Did you manage to salvage any bones last week?

	%
Small	17
Large	8
Both	3
None	65
N.A.	7
SAMPLE	3073

28% of the housewives said that they had salvaged bones during the previous week. The difference between these 28% and the 56% who say that they salvage bones regularly, though not in the previous week, may be explained by the fact that housewives do not get bones every week with their meat ration.

Group differences

Urban and Rural

For bones, rags and metal there are differences in the collection in urban and rural areas. It is surprising that no differences could be found for kitchen waste, especially as they were apparent in last year’s investigation. It seems that the increase in the salvage of food waste is mainly due to an increase of food salvage in towns.

Table 3

Those collecting regularly, sometimes or never - by Urban and Rural areas

	BONES		RAGS		METAL
	Urban	Rural	Urban	Rural	Urban	Rural
	%	%	%	%	%	%
Regularly	58	43	57	51	91	85
Sometimes	11	12	17	15	3	6
Never	30	44	26	33	6	9
N.A.	-	-	-	-	-	-
SAMPLE	2584	489	2584	489	2584	489

The salvage effort for all three items is greater in urban than in rural areas, particularly in the case of bones.

Type of dwelling

Originally four types of dwellings were distinguished; houses: flats in converted houses, boarding houses and rooms, and blocks of flats. Results showed that actually only the dwellers in blocks of flats differed from the average in their collection habits. In the next table, therefore, we are only giving the figures for collectors from blocks of flats, compared with the average.

Table 4

Those collecting regularly, sometimes or never - by type of dwelling

	PAPER		FOOD WASTE		BONES		RAGS		RUBBER
	Block of Flats	Average	Block of Flats	Average	Block of Flats	Average	Block of Flats	Average	Block of Flats	Average
	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
Regularly	73	76	73	79	51	56	44	56	21	32
Sometimes	14	11	3	5	15	11	16	17	1	8
Never	13	13	23	16	33	33	40	27	69	59
N.A.	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	9	1
SAMPLE	360	3073	360	3073	360	3073	360	3073	360	3073

Though the differences are not striking, a continuous trend is evident for each salvage article; a smaller number collect in blocks of flats than the average. No differences existed for metal, so the relevant figures are not included in the table.

Working and non-working housewives

No differences in the number collecting were found in these two groups.

The best and worst Town

Table 5

Regular collectors in the best and worst town

	Best town	Worst town
	%	%
Paper	89	56
Food waste	90	46
Metal	99	67
Bones	76	28
Rags	84	14
Rubber	55	4

It is not always the case that the town which has the greatest number of collectors for one article is also outstanding for another. For instance, in the analysis by town, one town had the greatest number of collectors of food waste, but the lowest for metal; another had the highest number of paper collectors and the lowest for food waste.

The number of different kinds of salvage collected

The next table gives a comparison of the numbers of the different kinds of salvage collected in the 1942 and 1943 investigations.

Table 6

Number of different kinds collected

	1943	1942
	%	%
People who collect more than 3 kinds	82	33
People who collect 2 to 3 kinds	17	51
People who collect one kind only	-	10
People who never collect any	1	6
Sample	3073	3028

This table shows that the great majority of collectors now salvage more than three kinds.

Since there is still a considerable number of people who do not salvage one or more of the articles, it was most important to find out why these people did not make a salvage effort.

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