Nonferrous heavyweights

North America’s largest nonferrous scrap processors grew the collective pounds they processed and shipped in 2024 compared with 2022. The 20 recycling companies that made our 2023 list, which was based on pounds handled in 2022, processed and shipped a total of 7.92 billion pounds of nonferrous metals, while the 20 companies on this year’s list handled nearly 9.1 billion pounds.

To compile this year’s list, we asked recycled materials processors to report the total pounds of nonferrous they processed and shipped last year and whether it included nonferrous auto shredder byproducts. When reported, that byproduct figure was subtracted from the overall figure to arrive at the totals we used to create the rankings. In some cases, we had to estimate a byproduct figure as it was not reported, though the person who submitted the form indicated those products were included in the figure provided. In a few other cases, we had to estimate a total figure because the firm did not respond to repeated requests for information.

Arriving at such estimates is not a perfect science, which is why I want to thank the company representatives who took the time to provide all the data we requested. Your help vastly improves the accuracy of these lists.

Changes in the lineup

As in our 2023 list, OmniSource Corp., headquartered in Fort Wayne, Indiana; SA Recycling, headquartered in Orange, California; Radius Recycling (formerly Schnitzer Steel Industries Inc.), headquartered in Portland, Oregon; Triple M Metal, headquartered in Brampton, Ontario; and David J. Joseph Co., headquartered in Cincinnati, ranked in the first five positions of this year’s list.

Sims Metal, the metal recycling business unit of Australia-based Sims Ltd., jumped two spots from 2023 to the No. 6 position on this year’s list, while Ferrous Processing & Trading, the Detroit-based metals recycling subsidiary of Cleveland-Cliffs, maintained its No. 7 position, and United Scrap Metal of Cicero, Illinois, fell to the No. 8 spot from No. 6 in 2023.

Sims’ increase was helped in part by its purchase of Northeast Metal Traders (NEMT), a nonferrous scrap metal wholesaler and broker operating a single-scale site in Philadelphia with extensive supplier and end-consumer relationships across the eastern United States. The company was founded by Mitchell Goldberg, Elliott Goldberg and Ron Greller in 1993, and its purchase aligned with Sims Ltd.’s growth strategy, which included the expansion of its North American nonferrous business. Sims described NEMT as one of the largest copper recyclers in the U.S., processing and selling about 60,000 tons, or 120 million* pounds, of nonferrous metal per year at the time of its purchase in 2023.

New Jersey-based EMR also moved from the No. 17 spot on our 2023 list to the No. 10 spot this year, having processed considerably more pounds of nonferrous metals than we estimated the company to have handled on our 2023 list.

Reappearing on the list after a multiple-year absence is Holland, Michigan-headquartered Padnos in the No. 16 spot. The company has not ranked since 2019, when it was in the No. 14 spot.

New to the list are GLE Scrap Metal, headquartered in Longwood, Florida, which ranked in the No. 18 spot; and Shapiro Metals, headquartered in St. Louis, which debuted in the No. 19 spot.

GLE’s figures include the pounds processed by Mallin Cos. of Kansas City, Missouri, which the company acquired an interest in at the end of 2024.

Mallin Cos. operates two aluminum wire recycling lines in Kansas City, while GLE operates six full-service metal recycling facilities across Michigan and Florida, a brokerage and trading division, an insulated copper wire recycling plant and Great Lakes Electronics Corp., its R2- (Responsible Recycling-) certified electronics recycling arm.

The companies say their new partnership will allow Mallin Cos. to stay competitive and continue its leadership in insulated aluminum, aluminum conductor steel reinforced and underground residential distribution cable processing.

Padnos also expanded in 2024 by acquiring three companies: Sam Winer & Co. Inc., Elkhart, Indiana; Howe Auto Sales, Bay City, Michigan; and Grandpa’s Garage, Traverse City, Michigan, growing its regional network.  

Sam Winer & Co. now operates as Padnos Elkhart, while Howe Auto Sales operates as Padnos Bay City. Grandpa’s Garage was consolidated into Padnos’ nearby Traverse City location.

Padnos also expanded its footprint in Michigan in 2022, purchasing Saginaw, Michigan-based B. Clinkston & Sons Inc., a third-generation family-owned company that was founded in 1915. That purchase followed its 2019 acquisition of a location in Howell, Michigan, from the former Regal Recycling Inc., where Padnos installed an auto shredder. 

Prior to the Regal purchase, the company acquired “a significant interest” in GLR Advanced Recycling of Roseville, Michigan, describing that transaction as a strategic partnership.

No longer ranking on this year’s list are Upstate Shredding – Weitsman Recycling, headquartered in Owego, New York, which ranked No. 15 in 2023, and the New Jersey-based recyclers Fortune Metal Recycling and Metalico, which held the No. 19 and No. 20 spots in 2023, respectively.

We suspect additional companies are poised to rank in future editions of this list, and we hope they will report their information to Recycling Today so that we can share their success with others in the industry.

An emerging theme

While companies’ nonferrous processing volumes took a hit at the height of the pandemic, when lockdowns were in place that affected generation of manufacturing scrap and yards’ retail intake, the subsequent years have seen normalcy return. However, the trade war that President Donald Trump has initiated could affect industrial generation—whether for better or for worse—in the months and potentially years ahead.

Right now, the uncertainty around the status of Trump’s tariffs on Canada and Mexico has many processors feeling apprehensive, particularly those with operations along the U.S.-Mexico and U.S.-Canada borders or across the borders, as they await further clarity.

“It’s an interesting way to have to run a business,” an executive with a scrap processing company that has operations in the U.S. Midwest and South, including in Texas, tells Recycling Today in early March. “I’m hoping sanity takes over at some point.”

The author is editorial director of the Recycling Today Media Group and can be reached at dtoto@gie.net.

*This article was corrected April 10, 2025. The volume Northeast Metal Traders handled was incorrectly represented as 120,000 pounds. The correct figure is 120 million. It was corrected again April 11, 2025, to note that Padnos appeared on the 2019 version of the list.