Fascinating wartime picture show Sussex's salvage in action

But during the Second World War recycling was at fever pitch in Britain. In fact, anyone who did not do it risked two years in prison, a punishment even the most ardent eco-warrior would balk at.

Of course, the reasons for it were not environmental.

Fearing a Nazi blockade would leave Britain with a paper shortage, the wartime Government made recycling paper compulsory in 1940 as part of the National Salvage Campaign.

As these fascinating pictures from The Keep archive in Falmer show, a mammoth effort was launched in Sussex to ensure nothing went to waste.

Three days after the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, the Ministry of Supply sent a memo to every council in the country demanding an “intensification of salvage work and fullest co-operation of councils and the public”.

OId rate books from Brighton Council are given up for salvage. Photo: East Sussex Record Office/The Keep

Propaganda posters showed soldiers bellowing “I need your waste paper” for shell containers, cartridge wads, and mortar carriers.

Housewives were encouraged to separate their paper for councils to collect. From 1942, anyone guilty of throwing away paper could be fined or even sent to jail for two years. Volunteers gathered in depots like the one in the top-right picture to sort salvage.

In 1942 433,405 tons of scrap paper was salvaged, a mammoth increase from the typical 50,000 tons salvaged per year before the war.

While the effort was impressive, historians grew concerned reams of Britain’s heritage were being scrapped.

Lewes Town Council and Worthing Town Council happily scrapped their accounting books for salvage in January 1942.

Volunteers collect paper in January 1942. Photo: East Sussex Record Office/The Keep

Even more painfully for historians, Sheppard and Sons solicitors in Battle handed over all of its coroner’s records for the years 1868 to 1926 to be scrapped.

Fearing a massacre of the country’s archives, the British Records Association started a counter-campaign against the effort. Campaigners handed out thousands of leaflets urging Brits to “look before you throw”.

We will never know many of the valuable records lost during the wartime scramble for paper.

But as historian Peter Thorsheim put it in his book Waste into Weapons: “The recycling of manuscripts and rare books during the war caused irreparable harm to the cultural and literary inheritance of the United Kingdom.”

The Keep is currently closed until further notice. For more information visit thekeep.info.