why do some countries navies prefer to sink old ships instead of scrap them?
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Most of the time, the money made from the scrap metal is less than the cost of the labor it would take to cut and process that metal. That is unless you live in a country where the labor is insanely cheap. Which is why you’ll see ship breaking yards in countries where the workers are making the equivalent of a couple US dollars a day at best. Plus there’s little regulatory oversight to control exposure to unsafe conditions and environmental damage which also pushes that cost even lower.
Barring that, it’s cheaper to strip all the hazardous material out of the ship, attach some explosives at the right point and sink it somewhere out of the way. If you plan it well, you can actually have the ship become a diving destination and a man made reef for fish.
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