Same thing happening around here.Scrap yards were such a great source of metals, unfortunately here in EU they got regulated into oblivion. I have a small scrap yard nearby that I used to go to few years ago. It was the last scrap yard that woukd let members of the publication c to wander around and browse stuff. They closed the business, because they said the regulations were to costly to follow. Pity.
Now the only source of cheap metals is local ads etc.
Local scrap yards stopped dealing with back over the counter sales. Used to be able to trade scrap at one place. I traded a lot of zinc and steel wheel weights for lead and rifle brass.
The remaining machine shops are not much use except for really small scrap.
Talking to one old shop owner and he says waste management has improved over the years. Along with accurate casting has really reduced any “scrap” other than chips. Even the 2 scrappers that come along my way says they hardly ever get “heavy” scrap.