Scrap Industry News

Alcoa has broken ground on a new $22 million project at its Tennessee operations’ can reclamation facility. Improvements include a new crusher and delacquering furnace and supporting building enclosures, utilities and environmental systems.

The company expects the new project to be complete within the next 17 months.

"This is an investment in our recycling capability. Alcoa is a leader in aluminum scrap processing technology, and this upgrade will help increase capacity using state-of-the-art environmental and fuel efficiency technologies as well as support future flexibility to process other aluminum scrap types," Greg Wittbecker, Alcoa’s director of corporate metal recycling strategy, says.

Implementation of this project will increase UBC molten output capacity by nearly 50 percent.

Alcoa’s Tennessee operations is the world’s largest producer of rolled aluminum can sheet for beverage cans.

Pull-A-Part LLC, Atlanta, has added to its growing roster of auto salvage retail locations by opening three new stores in mid-November.

The company, founded by scrap industry veterans in the Cohen and Kogon families of Atlanta (see "Super Model," in the Sept. 2007 edition of Recycling Today), opened stores in Montgomery, Ala., Lafayette, La., and Cleveland on the same day.

The company now has 11 locations open and nine more under construction. In each of its markets, Pull-A-Part instantly becomes a major buyer of salvaged autos and a significant generator of flattened auto hulks for local shredding plant operators.

Aleris International Inc., based in Beachwood, Ohio, has entered into a definitive agreement to sell its zinc business, which operates under the name U.S. Zinc, to affiliates of Votorantim Metals Ltd., a Brazilian company, for $295 million. Closing is subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions.

U.S. Zinc recycles zinc metal for use in the manufacture of galvanized steel and produces value-added zinc products, primarily zinc oxide and zinc dust, which are used in the vulcanization of rubber products, the production of corrosion-resistant paint and in other specialty chemical applications.

Interseroh AG has acquired Rohstoffe Kohler GmbH, a steel and metal recycling company with operations in Germersheim and Kehl, Germany. The acquisition was carried out by Interseroh Hansa Recycling GmbH, Dortmund, Germany.

Interseroh says the deal will strengthen the company’s ferrous and nonferrous processing.

The new facilities fit in with Interseroh’s operations in Mannheim, Germany, and adds an additional 60,000 metric tons of ferrous and nonferrous scrap processed per year.

Christian Rubach, Interseroh chief executive, says the acquisition will boost the company’s logistics abilities, continues its moves to strengthen its scrap presence in various regions and boosts the company’s market share in the German scrap metal recycling business.

Last year Interseroh processed more than 5 million metric tons of recyclable material, including 3.3 million tons of scrap metal.

Operating throughout Europe, Interseroh GmbH organizes, coordinates and documents the recycling of scrap packaging and discarded products, provides all-inclusive waste disposal services and trades in large volumes of high-quality secondary raw materials.

More information about the company and its services, as well as its most recent acquisition, is available online at www.interseroh.gruppe.de.