Something for Everyone

Among the ways to appreciate the vast scope of the recycling industry is to consider the very different workplace settings the readers of this publication report to each day. The amount of contrast that exists within the recycling universe allows people who accurately refer to themselves as recyclers to be engaged in very different activities.

The white-collar/blue-collar dichotomy creates some of the differences—often at the same location. The brokers and traders conducting business from their PCs, telephones and personal digital assistants are part of the chain keeping secondary commodities in demand and directing them to their next destination. The trades being conducted don’t have any substance to them, though, unless other people wearing work gloves and hard hats are collecting, processing and shipping scrap materials. Some of this activity might be taking place just a few feet away or many miles away from the broker, but the physical side of the business always ties in, with many scrap company employees and officers enjoying both roles.

Simply separating activities into white-collar and blue-collar categories only scratches the surface in describing the diversity of recycling industry job descriptions.

Recycling company owners and managers across all materials sectors stress product quality and the cleanliness of the secondary commodities they are producing. Pretty clearly, though, recyclers of some materials are working in quality and cleanliness settings that are far removed from some of their peers.

Recyclers of electronics components, for instance, may have to harvest chips and microprocessors in laboratory settings more reminiscent of IT industry “clean rooms.”

Similarly, end market destination facilities for some secondary commodities use their recycled-content feedstock in settings where product purity is the highest priority. In the plastics industry, for instance, if material is being produced to meet Food & Drug Administration food-contact standards, the word “contamination” is taken especially seriously.

Those with finance or chemistry degrees who feel most at ease wearing a suit or a laboratory smock can certainly find a home in the recycling industry. For those who wish to be part of a heavier industry—complete with heat, noise and heavy equipment moving tons of material—several recycling sectors can match that description as well. At the world’s most sprawling steelmaking complexes, at some of its largest paper mills and at multi-acre scrap yards with mountains of metal, the collars are blue and the know-how has more to do with keeping heavy machinery running.

Ideally, this issue of Recycling Today, like past and future issues, will provide helpful information for professionals working in any of these settings.