Scrapping is called the act and the result of scrapping: disassembling, undoing, cutting or ruining something. The concept is also used to name the set of elements resulting from scrapping an object and the site where cars and other vehicles are scrapped .
For example: “My uncle is dedicated to the sale of scrap parts”, “The police discovered a scrap yard where stolen auto parts were sold”, “The neoliberal regime caused the scrapping of the country’s productive apparatus”.
The idea of scrapping is usually used in relation to the dismantling of cars, motorcycles, trucks, vans and boats. Scrapping is the activity and the place where it is carried out. Scrapping can be legal (intended to reuse or dispose of certain components that are part of vehicles) or illegal (when stolen cars are disassembled to sell their parts).
It is important to establish that scrap yards have two clearly defined functions. On the one hand, they are in charge of dismantling what are the vehicles that are discarded by their owners, because they no longer work or because they are many years old. On the other hand, they become great places to find spare parts for cars, motorcycles, scooters or vans, for example, at much cheaper prices than in a workshop or an official parts house.
In Spain, the existence of scrapyards and even their operation is highly regulated. Hence, by law, the obligation of these places is established, not only to recycle the components that are possible, but also to remove the waste to the sites authorized for this purpose.
Likewise, the procedure that these scrapyards have to carry out to process what is the destruction documentation of the vehicles is collected.
The notion is also used with respect to symbolic, abstract or difficult to quantify issues. The authorities of a country, to cite one case, can develop a plan to achieve the dismantling of a terrorist group. In this context, the term is linked to the government’s intention to dismantle the gang so that it can no longer operate.
Scrapping a company, on the other hand, involves the sale of its assets. Suppose the owner of a company decides to sell most of the machines that allow him to produce. He also fires 70% of the employees and stops renting several buildings that the firm used. It can be said, therefore, that the owner is promoting the scrapping of the company.
In the same way, we cannot ignore the existence of a book entitled “American Junkyard”, which is written by Bonnie Jo Campbell. It consists of a set of stories in which the protagonists are different characters from what would be the working class of Michigan.
They are people who, although they may have dreams, are not able to achieve them or leave behind the life they lead, they face day to day as best they can, they stand out for being extravagant in many of their behaviors and they assume the life that they have had to live surrounded by of a decadent world.