Heritage Roundtable Insights

Recycling Today: Looking back at the past 50 years or so, what is the biggest change you have seen—a business condition or a work practice that is very different from what was going on 40 or 50 years ago?

Stanley Kramer: One of the greatest things that we all recognize is the mechanization. When I started in this business, the only tools I had were a hammer and chisel. Today, no one uses a hand tool. It goes into a machine and gets processed. I think the machinery has made some huge differences to the look of what our industry has become.

Stanton Moss: My opinion is that the biggest change is the shredder. The shredder has done wonders for our industry, and the downstream separation equipment has really made a tremendous change. So I agree with mechanization, like Stanley mentioned, and the shredder and downstreams are part of that.

In the next 50 years, I think we’ll see equipment that analyzes downstream, so when a recycling company ships a product, it will meet a specification that will increase the value of its material. I think we have only seen a very small portion of the technology we’ll see in the next 50 years, and it will change our industry completely.

Larry Sax: One of the major differences I see today that is a hindrance to dealers is the lack of consumers. The number of brass and bronze ingot makers, small foundries, cast iron foundries and steel foundries that have closed over the years make markets very slim, and there are very few places to go. I think that hurts the average scrap processor today.

Richard Abrams: Most of the steel was made in BOFs (basic oxygen furnaces) and even open hearth furnaces in our area, and their scrap buying was sporadic. But when local mills like Lukens Steel put in their electric furnaces, demand became more consistent. Demand worldwide has been more consistent for the last eight or 10 years, especially from China.

And increasingly sophisticated shredding plants, especially the downstream technology and eddy currents, have brought major changes. … the shredder has made the scrap industry more of a manufacturing process. The product is consistent, and the quality is consistently high. … The mills like the material.