I've asked at a few places what happens with their scrap mowers, one tip said they all go to scrap metal and don't allow anyone to buy their mowers another scrap yard I had to convince to sell me a couple of Victa 18's but they said they won't sell mowers and all will go to scrap metal.
The 50 alloy bases that I took to scrap were so I could build up other mowers that needed parts as most of the 50 I had were incomplete mowers and were only bought for parts to finish off better mowers ,I only scrap the bases ,axles and handle bars.
I generally don't buy a lot of new parts to repair an old mower if I can buy a mower with good blades then I don't buy new blades.
The 50 that were dismantled have already helped to complete 10 good mowers ,3 are already sold .
As it's a cost neutral hobby it would be impossible to fix them all and all engine parts etc are used .
Yes a lot of people go around filling a trailer or truck and all the complete mowers go straight to scrap also have seen a lot of people that have collected say a 100 mowers and they just sit out in the rain rusting.