Efforts to salvage materials needed for essential war industries were among the more significant contributions made by people on the home front. The slogan, "Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without" was seen and heard everywhere. Some six million tons of newspapers were recycled for use in the military. Recycled kitchen grease was collected to help make explosives, medicines, rubber, and nylon for parachutes. Some 4,000 tons of rubber to be recycled were collected in Hamilton County alone.

Metal was probably the most valuable material recycled during the war. If each American bought one less can per week, enough steel and tin could be saved to produce 5,000 tanks. Empty toothpaste tubes provided much-needed lead. Ohio Governor John Bricker sent telegrams to mayors across Ohio in June 1941 to appoint local chairmen to collect metal. By 1943 more than 26 million tons of iron and steel were collected for use in essential industries.

Three Columbus women (Marjorie Passo, Rose Budd, and Dorothy Foody) posed on a pile of license plates collected for the war effort by Isaly Dairy Stores in April 1942. In one week, store employees collected nine tons of tin. Some states even made license plates from soy-based fiberboard in order to save metal.

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