Continual growth

Greeneville Iron & Metal, Greeneville, Tennessee, is a fourth-generation, privately held recycling company. Business operations began in the 1940s when company founder Ross Collins acquired the Greeneville Foundry.

Over the years, the company progressed and evolved as Ross’ son Lyle expanded operations and moved to progressively larger facilities. Jeff Collins, who is Lyle’s son and the current CEO at Greeneville, continued that commitment to growth by establishing a hauling business and later a class IV landfill.

With operations today that include a scrap metal yard, a recycling facility, hauling business, landfill and demolition services, Greeneville is a diversified environmental services company. Their deep industry experience has taught them the value of buying the right equipment for the job.

Continued expansion

Jeff’s son, Matt, joined the company full-time in 2010 and was charged with driving new growth. He began to create opportunities by purchasing different fiber and nonferrous streams and even established some tolling arrangements.

“As soon as I began to grow our volumes for the recycling center, we quickly realized we needed a larger baler,” Matt says. “The old machine just could not produce bales fast enough.”

Greeneville Iron & Metal bales a steady stream of old corrugated containers (OCC), office paper and old newspaper (ONP), as well as aluminum extrusions, painted aluminum, copper wire and used beverage containers (UBCs). As a result, Matt says he knew the company needed “an extremely flexible baler.”

“That’s the reason we knew a two-ram would be the best style baler for us,” he says.

Making the investment

After doing their research, Matt and his father decided to purchase a 2R9 two-ram baler from Excel Manufacturing. “When we met with Shane Becnel, he had previously run a recycling facility. He understood the challenges. We also looked at the machines and found them to be heavy, with stout construction. That was important to us.”

The Excel was installed in February 2018 and has been running smoothly since.

“The Excel User Interface control panel allows for quick and easy material changes. That’s vital because of the range of materials we process,” Matt says. “There were some minor issues with the start-up, but Shane and the Excel team were right there to address them. The baler has been great for us, allowing us to continue growing our business. Excel has been a good company to work with. We’re really pleased with the performance of our 2R9 two-ram baler.”