You'd think that with the amount of hot air generated by this website alone...
One of the issues is possibly the waste laws. Remember when we used to donate pots and pans to make Spitfires, etc.? Scrap was seen as a strategic resource. Then it was realigned under waste management rules.
The scrappies went wild. Okay, you rarely see a poor one - a 'poor' year is one in which he didn't buy a new Jag - but they did have a point. It meant that there were often unreasonable costs loaded onto them. For instance, by the time what's left of a car goes to landfill, there's nothing of intrinsic value left on it - the scrappies will have had it all off. But they were being made to pay the full whack for landfilling 'waste'.
It also has lead to the absurd situation where whole vessels of scrap are shipped off to places like India to be dealt with. What's wrong with putting it in a smelter here? We literally give away materials of significant worth.