Scrap Industry News

LKQ Acquires Greenleaf Auto Recyclers from Schnitzer
LKQ Corp., based in Chicago, has announced that it has acquired Greenleaf Auto Recyclers LLC from Schnitzer Steel Industries Inc. (SSI), Portland, Ore. Additionally, SSI has acquired four retail-oriented self-service recycling facilities in Oregon and Washington from LKQ.

LKQ also sold certain business assets to SSI related to two self-service facilities in Northern California and a self-service facility in Portland, Ore. LKQ will close two self-service facilities in Northern California and convert the self-service operation in Portland to a wholesale recycling business.

Greenleaf’s wholesale recycling business consists of 17 operating locations in Michigan, Ohio, Massachusetts, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Texas and Nevada. LKQ plans to merge certain locations with its existing wholesale recycling operations, which will result in the elimination of approximately 11 operating locations.
The facilities SSI has taken over in the Northwest are near the company’s scrap metal export facilities in Portland and represent the company’s first used auto parts operations in the Pacific Northwest.

“This transaction is consistent with our strategy of expanding our auto parts business in regions where we can take advantage of vertical integration with our metals recycling business,” says Tamara Lundgren, SSI president and CEO. “In addition, it is representative of our focus on building franchise positions in the regions in which we operate.”

She adds, “These acquisitions will allow us to successfully build upon the Pick-n-Pull brand of self-service stores and reach many new customers in both the Pacific Northwest and Texas. We’d also like to thank the employees at Greenleaf for their years of service, hard work and efforts.”

Under the terms of the contract, SSI is acquiring two self-service recycling facilities from LKQ in the Dallas area. That will bring the number of self-service operations the company operates in the area to four, effective Jan. 15, 2010.

The acquired locations will operate under the Pick-n-Pull name.

At the completion of these transactions, SSI’s auto parts group will operate 45 self-service stores in 14 states and in Western Canada.

“These transactions provide us with additional wholesale recycling capacity and enhanced customer penetration in numerous markets in our late-model recycled auto parts business line and provide our initial entry to the northern Virginia market,” says LKQ President and CEO Joe Holsten. He adds, “While the self-service operations we are disposing of are good businesses, they fit better with SSI’s operations and business model.”

As a result of these moves, LKQ says it expects operating results, excluding restructuring expenses or transaction gains or losses, to be dilutive in 2009 by approximately 1 cent in earnings per share but to become accretive beginning in 2010. 

EMR Expands in the United Kingdom
European Metal Recycling Ltd. (EMR), based in Warrington, U.K., has completed the acquisition of Sunderland Metal Co., Pallion, U.K., one of the largest metal recycling firms in the Northeast portion of the United Kingdom.
EMR says Sunderland will enhance its scrap metal processing capabilities in the Northeast.

Sunderland Metal will continue to operate as normal under the new ownership and will handle all grades of ferrous and nonferrous metal, including end-of-life vehicles. 

Mike Seale, EMR’s regional director, says, “We are delighted to have acquired such a well-established company in Sunderland. The new site will complement our existing operations in the Northeast and give us the opportunity to expand our processing activities in an area where we have focused largely on shipping in the past.”

Bill Dalziel, Sunderland’s managing director, says, “I would like to thank all our customers for their business and loyalty over the years and long may it continue.”

EMR, one of the largest metal recycling companies in the world, has a significant presence in the United States through acquisitions or partnership arrangements with companies in the Midwest and South.

Upstate Shredding Invests $25 Million in its Owego Plant
Upstate Shredding LLC, Owego, N.Y., (profiled in the July issue of Recycling Today) is in the final stages of completing a $25 million upgrade to its auto shredding plant.

“Industry experts tell us that there are few, if any, other plants in the world that have achieved our level of technical sophistication in the maximum recovery of metals from the waste stream and in environmental responsibility,” says Adam Weitsman, company president.

Upstate, which bills itself as New York state’s largest scrap metal processor and one of the largest privately held processors on the East Coast, states in a news release that it has undertaken several upgrades at the plant.
These include enclosing the 200,000-square-foot Owego complex and boosting its capacity so it can handle an anticipated scrap production in 2009 of 700,000 tons of metals of all types.

By walling and roofing the facility, installing a new storm sewer system and an on-site water treatment plant, the goal of Upstate Shredding is to exceed the standards of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and become the first “green” plant of its type in the state, the company says.

“At a time when many businesses are retrenching, we are investing in the future,” says Weitsman. “This new technology gives us a competitive advantage that is already helping to grow our business despite the economy.”
Inside the plant, which shreds autos, white goods and other types of scrap metal, the company has been making additions and upgrades to its equipment, including:  

• A 10,000-horsepower Riverside Engineering 122-inch Mega Shredder. The machine can shred complete automobiles, trucks and motor blocks at the rate of 450 tons per hour, says Upstate. It is equipped with electronics designed to increase productivity and reduce energy consumption. Weighing more than 500 tons, the new machine nearly doubles Upstate’s Owego production capacity.

• A polishing drum magnet system designed to automatically remove electric motors containing copper armatures from vehicles and to eliminate the need to hand-pick motors from conveyor belts.

• Four ferrous metal separation systems using eddy current technology to segregate nonferrous metals, such as aluminum, copper and brass, from ferrous metals.

• A dual-energy X-ray separator system designed to identify metal particles by atomic density and to segregate aluminum from heavier metals.

• Six sand-jet dry heavy media plants designed to remove copper from aluminum.

• Optic color sorters designed to separate yellow metals from red metals. Each unit uses several ultra-high-speed, high-resolution video cameras. Images of metals traveling on a conveyor belt go to a computer that analyzes metals by shape and color to trigger automatic separation.

• An $8 million wire-recovery system designed to recover small-diameter wires found in autos and appliances using inductive metal detection combined with near-infrared scanning.

Upstate and its sister company Ben Weitsman & Son have scrap operations in Owego, Binghamton and Ithaca, N.Y. Upstate also is building a new facility in Syracuse, N.Y. and planning another in Scranton, Pa. Both are set to open in 2010.

NRC Board Votes Unanimously to Support Reorganization Plan
The National Recycling Coalition’s (NRC’s) board of directors has voted to develop a reorganization plan before the end of October, suspending a previous motion to file Chapter 7 bankruptcy. The result was unavailable as of press time. 

“I believe the board as a whole preferred that the organization continue to exist if a legal path could be found, and today, we heard one existed,” says Melinda Uerling, NRC board president.

The board also directed Uerling to form committees comprised of board members and leaders within the membership to begin working on the reorganization plan.