From the Archives

Making Headlines in 1993...

April 10: The Good Friday Agreement Signed in Belfast

Aug. 7: U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania Bombed, 224 People Dead

Sept. 4: Google Inc. Founded by Sergey Brin and Larry Page

Dec. 6: Hugo Chávez Elected President of Venezuela

Business Trends
Consolidated Plans
For its June 1998 cover story, Recycling Today interviewed the executives leading Chicago-based Metal Management Inc.’s effort to build a publicly traded scrap recycling company with nationwide coverage.

“Right now, I don’t believe any one company has more than 8 percent of the market,” the company’s CEO Albert A. Cozzi told Recycling Today in 1998. “We expect that, at the end, we probably will have 20 percent of the ferrous and nonferrous scrap markets.”

Industry Leaders
Regional Respect
A handful of national operators have enjoyed considerable market share in that sector since the 1990s, but that has not prevented some companies from offering stiff competition on a regional basis.

In Ohio and adjacent states, Cincinnati-based Rumpke Consolidated Cos.—and its Rumpke Recycling division—has provided one such example, as spelled out in a January 2001 Recycling Today cover story.

CEO Bill Rumpke told Recycling Today how Ohio’s passage of a landfill diversion bill in 1987 spurred the family business to found the Rumpke Recycling division in 1989. “In the response to all the demands this bill made, we had to be in the recycling business,” he commented.

As of 2013, Rumpke Recycling offers residential and commercial recycling collection services and operates 10 material recovery facilities (MRFs) in Ohio and Kentucky.

Consuming Markets
Proceeding Wisely
The aluminum scrap buying and melting activities of Wise Metals Group and Wise Recycling LLC were the focus of a profile story in the January 2000 edition of Recycling Today.

At the time, Wise Recycling LLC was 50 percent owned by Wise Metals Group and 50 percent owned by Tomra North America.

Both co-owners helped direct Wise Recycling’s efforts into aluminum used beverage containers (UBCs) and in particular seeking UBC feedstock for the Wise Alloys melting facility in Muscle Shoals, Ala.

“Our 22 shipping locations are where all of our UBCs that we supply to Alabama are shredded and shipped to the mill in Muscle Shoals,” company vice president Richard Weaver told Recycling Today in 2000.

The Wise Alloys plant in Muscle Shoals continues to turn UBCs into new aluminum cansheet stock at a pace that makes it the third largest such producer in the U.S.