Roots and New Branches

This month’s cover story features a truly iconic firm in the modern recycling industry, Alpert & Alpert. With deep industry roots, this Los Angeles-based processor and broker of nonferrous metals and alloys is a true pioneer in global trade. In fact, because the company’s efforts were so pioneering, much of the industry vernacular used today to describe nonferrous grades was devised by Alpert & Alpert. It’s a great story everyone should read.

We also offer critical insight into the recently announced acquisition of Smurfit-Stone by RockTenn. With each of these paper makers operating sizable recycling businesses, this is sure to have a significant impact on the industry.

The issue also features a range of other valuable articles that will appeal to electronics recyclers, C&D recycler and demolition contractors and material recovery facility operators. Weighing in at 216 pages, the March issue offers a wide range of stories for nearly every type of recycler.

Providing business information and insight has been the mission of Recycling Today for decades. Throughout those years the industry has changed tremendously. Today, the range of materials that enter the recycling market and the technology used to process them is amazing. Those materials are sold in a global marketplace. This combination has made the industry far more complex than recyclers from decades ago would likely believe.

To keep pace, Recycling Today also has changed. In January of 2011 we introduced three additional websites dedicated to specific segments of the industry—automobile and metals shredding, electronics recycling and plastics recycling. Each is designed to meet the business information needs of these specialized market segments. You’ll find them online at AutoShredding.info, E-Scrap.info and PLrecycling.info.

These new information sites are an outgrowth of our monthly e-newsletters serving each of those sectors. Those products have been hugely popular with readers, so the websites are a natural extension designed to meet the industry’s informational needs.

In late 2010 we also began offering the digital edition of Recycling Today through an iPhone app. You can download it for free at the Apple App Store. We’ll soon be extending our mobile offerings for Android-powered mobile devices as well.

If you would like to see us do something different, providing coverage of a sector or material that we’re not or delivering content in a way that’s more suitable for you, please let us know.

Recycling Today is much different than it was in 1963. That change has been driven by serving an evolving market and through meeting the requests of our readers and advertising customers.