Recycling was popular and patriotic during the Second World War. Housewives and butchers all over the country were mobilized to collect bacon grease and cooking fat because they contain glycerin, which is used to make explosive nitroglycerin.
One pound of waste fat equaled 1/10 of a pound of glycerine.
1/10 pound of glycerine equaled 1/5 of a pound of nitroglycerine.
1/5 of a pound of nitroglycerine equaled 1/3 pound of gunpowder.
1/5 of a pound of nitroglycerine equaled ½ pound of dynamite.
The poster above was illustrated by an emigrant from Austria, Henry Koerner. (Office of War Information poster, no. 63. 1943. 28 x 20).
It wasn’t just bacon grease that citizens were asked to recycle. See poster below.
It’s interesting how simple, nearly child-like, these cartoon ads were.
