What Are We Going to Do With All This Material?

At the end of World War II, there was a lot of material left over in South pacific. The US offered to sell it to their allies for pennies on the dollar. But they didn't want to give it away and weren't going to take it home. They started fires that burned some of the stuff off the shore. And when these items were in the water and they couldn't drive anything in more, they built a jetty on top of the junk they had already thrown into the water. This seems so unnecessary.