---
title: 'Scrap It: Before It Scraps You'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/uk-scrap-it-before-it-scraps-you-1942/
description: A pale spanner with a worn, open jaw hangs over a black field, and a small figure with an arm in a sling stands below.
section: Collection
---

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3. Scrap It: Before It Scraps You

[![Scrap It: Before It Scraps You, 1942 UK poster: A pale spanner with a worn, open jaw hangs over a black field, and a small](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/uk-scrap-it-before-it-scraps-you-1942.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/uk-scrap-it-before-it-scraps-you-1942.jpg)

# Scrap It: Before It Scraps You

A pale spanner with a worn, open jaw hangs over a black field, and a small figure with an arm in a sling stands below. The tell for fear appeal is the small injured figure and the line 'Before it scraps you': a damaged tool is tied to a personal injury.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/)

## Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
Pat Keely '42
SCRAP IT
Before
it scraps you
Issued by the Ministry of Labour and National Service and produced by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, Terminal House, 52, Grosvenor Gardens, London, S.W.1.
BRITISH INFORMATION SERVICES
30 Rockefeller Plaza
New York City
ML/68
Printed by LOXLEY BROS. LTD.
```

[← Save Fuel to Speed Victory (Battle for Fuel)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/uk-save-fuel-to-speed-victory-1942/) [Splinters are poisoned arrows - get First Aid →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/uk-splinters-are-poisoned-arrows-first-aid-1942/)

## More propaganda examples that use the same techniques

- [Miniature of Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont, Les Passages d'outremer (BnF Fr. 5594, fol. 19r)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/passages-doutremer-council-of-clermont-colombe-1474/) (France · 1474 · Testimonial, Fear appeal). Content note: Medieval religious imagery and a French text describing alleged killings and captivity of eastern Christians, as used to argue for the First Crusade; the text is shown as written.
- [Anacoana fut pendue sans raison (engraving in Le miroir de la cruelle et horrible tyrannie espagnole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/anacoana-hanged-miroir-tyrannie-espagnole-1620/) (Dutch Republic · 1620 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Engraving of a hanged, bare-breasted Taino woman, burning huts and people being killed by Spanish soldiers.
- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (Holy Roman Empire · 1632 · Scapegoating, Fear appeal)
- [Sans-Culottes, feeding Europe with the Bread of Liberty (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sans-culottes-bread-of-liberty-gillray-1793/) (Kingdom of Great Britain · Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [Proclamation de Sonthonax en créole, Cap-Français (Proclamation of Commissioner Sonthonax in Creole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sonthonax-proclamation-creole-1793/) (France · Aug 29, 1793 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating). Content note: Colonial-era proclamation on slavery and emancipation in Saint-Domingue; speaks of slaves, whips and 'Nègues' in period terms.
- [Gazette of the United States, "The Jeffersoniad" no. VIII, 14 August 1800](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gazette-us-jeffersoniad-1800/) (United States · Aug 14, 1800 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [Tyrants Prostrate, Liberty Triumphant (pro-Polk cartoon on Dorr), 1844](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/tyrants-prostrate-liberty-triumphant-polk-1844/) (United States · 1844 · Name-calling, Fear appeal). Content note: Speech balloons contain anti-Catholic and nativist wording ('the ruins of Popery') in the mouths of the Whig figures, written by a Democratic cartoonist and shown unaltered.
- [Brolej Žemajčiaj! (Brothers Samogitians!): hand-painted broken-cross poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/brolej-zemajciaj-broken-cross-1862/) (Russian Empire · 1862 · Fear appeal, Transfer)