Golly!
Many items destined to be in a junkyard tomorrow are driving down our streets and parked in our driveways TODAY!
Your point? It used to be business as usual dumping junk into ditches or bodies of water.
They hauled the cars, rail cars, big trucks and basically anything metal to the salvage lots on the riverbank piled them high with cranes with huge electromagnets, the same crane would then load barges with the junk to be shipped north to be recycled into cars we drove in the 60’s-early-mid ‘70’s until the people got tired of dumping stuff into the rivers and streams and found better, cleaner ways to recycle junk.
Usually, there would be a burn pit on location to burn non-recyclable materials from junk cars too. Stuff like soybean based composite steering wheels from that era, insulating fabrics from the seats and door panels and who could forget the rubber gasket materials and tires.
At least now, we don’t store junk on the riverbanks or shallow ponds like back then. You sound like a good eco-warrior, have you stopped owning automobiles and use public transit exclusively? Not that being a public transit consumer has any virtue either, where do they take transit coaches when they wear out?