Embracing innovation

Fair Salvage Co., Clare, Michigan, is one of the largest scrap metal processors in the central part of the state, and the company helps maintain its leadership position by incorporating advanced recycling equipment at its three Michigan facilities, located in Clare, Chase and Sheridan. By embracing innovation, this family-owned business thrives in an often challenging industry.

Fair Salvage has built a strong reputation over its 30 years in business, specializing in recycling steel, vehicles, copper, aluminum, brass and batteries. Much of the recyclable scrap processed at Fair Salvage is recovered from cars and light trucks.

Company President Jonathon Fair, who grew up in the industry alongside other family members, currently oversees Fair Salvage’s daily operations. “Ongoing equipment upgrades are vital to remaining competitive in a fluctuating market,” he says. “As a company that is always observing trends, we recognized that the movement toward low-copper ferrous shred is proving to be the future wave. Never one to sit by idly, we began researching equipment options to help us achieve this goal of supplying a more premium shred.”

In its search to capitalize on local steel mills’ growing demand for premium quality No. 1 shred, defined as containing 0.17 percent or less copper content, the company discovered the Eriez Shred1 ballistic separator. Working with Eriez personnel and its manufacturer’s representative, Kalamazoo, Michigan-based Hi-Pro Equipment, Fair Salvage installed and commissioned the Shred1 last year at its Clare facility.

“We were working on a couple different equipment installations when we decided to add the Shred1 to our operation,” Fair says. “Eriez and Hi-Pro made the process as smooth as possible.”

A variety of testing was conducted during the start-up phase, and results were impressive, according to Fair and his team. Fair says Eriez, based in Erie, Pennsylvania, and Hi-Pro provided continued guidance and assistance to get the equipment up and running quickly.

“During the commissioning phase, we got our numbers back and recorded a 0.14 on roughly 180 gross tons of frag for the low-copper shred on one test run and a 0.15 on another test,” Fair says. “Considering the industry standard is between 0.16 to 0.18, we were very pleased with the results. "We’ve been running the Shred1 since the initial phase and have been more than satisfied with the overall operation,” he adds. “By adding Shred1, we are solving issues that our steel customers are facing when it comes to getting a premium product.”

The case for low-copper shred

Why are the world’s leading recyclers rushing to incorporate equipment to produce low-copper shred?

While copper is a valuable metal in many applications, that isn’t the case when it comes to steelmaking. Too much copper in a melt will soften or embrittle the steel batch and affect the surface quality of the end product, according to Mike Shattuck, recycling market manager at Eriez.

Copper is commingled in shredded scrap in the form of loose wires, bundles, harnesses, coils and meatballs from scrap automobiles and more. Shattuck notes some steel mills have copper requirements much lower than 0.20 percent copper, depending on what they are producing.

“The resulting upgraded shredded scrap lowers the amount of copper-bearing material and increases the grade of the scrap,” Shattuck says. “The Shred1 removes misplaced nonferrous materials typically found in shredded scrap, thereby increasing yields in the steelmaking process. This process allows Fair Salvage and other shredder yards to provide a more desirable scrap to steel mills seeking a low-copper scrap with consistent quality. These steel mills gain a competitive cost advantage by using less pig iron/DRI [direct reduced iron/sponge iron] and preconsumer scrap while attaining low-cost, low-copper shredded scrap in electric arc furnace [EAF] steelmaking.”

Higher-quality ferrous product

The Shred1 uses magnetics and ballistics to deliver two distinct fractions: a high-value, premium low-copper ferrous product and a traditional No. 2 shred. This technology effectively consolidates visible and concealed copper, reducing the requirement for hand sorting and eliminating the need for X-ray scanning, Eriez says.

The company introduced the Shred1 ballistic separator more than a decade ago, and since its debut, Eriez has witnessed an upsurge of product acceptance in the recycling marketplace, according to Global Market Manager for Heavy Industry Darrell Milton. “While Shred1 sales have always been strong and steady—with a significant number of successful installations up and running for years—that number is spiking as steel mills are requesting a higher quality ferrous product from scrap yards.

“Scrap processors are utilizing the Shred1 to increase their profitability by supplying steel mill customers with the high-grade ferrous product at a premium price. Furthermore, as shredders can reduce the amount of hand sorting required while increasing the pounds per ton of copper pickings, their profitability picture gets even more exciting.”

The Shred1 uses ballistics to automatically separate high-grade, iron-rich ferrous from mixed metals and waste. It uses a high-speed conveyor belt and subjects the material to forces that push varied materials into different trajectories. The result is that the smallest and purest items are pulled from the natural trajectory of the larger and less-pure ferrous and ferrous composite items, such as meatballs and tires. These purer ferrous items end up in a No. 1 shred chute and move to a stacking conveyor. Unlike other “ferrous cleaning” processes, Shred1 does not remove one or a few contaminants from a ferrous stream, but removes the clean ferrous from the mixed material stream, Eriez says. The company’s research shows the No. 1 shred material tends to be more uniform in size and represents about 75 percent of the feed stream, requiring little or no hand-sorting.

The traditional No. 2 shredder scrap that was deposited over the splitter is conveyed to the picking station where copper-bearing materials are picked from the material stream. With a lower volume of material at the picking station, fewer pickers are required.

Many customers combine the Shred1 ballistic separator with an Eriez P-Rex permanent rare earth magnetic drum, effectively improving their entire process, according to Shattuck.

The superior strength of the P-Rex permanent magnet scrap drum allows for a higher recovery of copper-bearing materials to be presented to the Shred1, resulting in more copper pickings per ton of shred processed.

“We find that when you purchase a piece of equipment, the integrity of the manufacturer behind the equipment is equally as important as the quality of the equipment.” – Jonathon Fair, president, Fair Salvage Co.

Staying competitive in the marketplace

By adding the Shred1, Fair Salvage and other progressive recycling operations can remain competitive by providing customers a higher-grade product in a challenging marketplace.

Fair says the results Fair Salvage has experienced have been consistent with what his team envisioned. “We knew this was the wave of the future when we decided to add Shred1 to our operations,” he says.

When embarking on an equipment search, Fair notes experience has taught his company to look at the whole picture, including both the equipment and the partnership with the supplier. “We find when you purchase a piece of equipment, the integrity of the manufacturer behind the equipment is equally as important as the quality of the equipment. The responsiveness, pointers and feedback we received from Eriez and Hi-Pro was crucial, from startup and commissioning to follow-up.”

Fair says Shred1 is hitting its targets since it went online. “This equipment gives us the ability to produce higher-premium shred for our steelmaking customers while simultaneously giving us another way to attract and keep new customers.”

Visit www.fairsalvage.com for more information on Fair Salvage Co, and for more information on the Shred1, visit www.eriez.com/NA/EN/Products/Metals-Recycling/Ferrous-Recovery/Shred1-Ballistic-Separator.htm.