Finding his purpose

In February, Sierra International Machinery, headquartered in Bakersfield, California, released Repurposed, a documentary series available on the company’s YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/c/SierraInternationalMachinery that is hosted and narrated by Sierra co-owner and President John Sacco.

The first season of the multiepisode series highlights various American metal processors and recyclers to show how recycled materials are vital to manufacturing everyday goods. The first season of Repurposed, which includes the episodes “It Takes Grit,” “Look Up,” “Steel the Show” and “The Deal with Steel,” includes appearances from Jay Robinovitz, CEO of Alter Trading Corp., headquartered in St. Louis; Jim Keefe, publisher of the Recycling Today Media Group and executive vice president of GIE Media, Valley View, Ohio; Robin Wiener, president of the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, Washington; Shannon Johnson, director of safety at SSAB in Muscadine, Iowa; and George Adams, president and CEO of SA Recycling in Orange, California.

The second season of the series will delve into the role recovered fiber plays in paper production and will include appearances from Myles Cohen of Circular Ventures LLC and a board member of Vipa USA, and Joel Litman, president and co-owner of Texas Recycling in Dallas.

Recycling Today talked with Sacco about why he felt it was important to produce the show and what he hopes to accomplish with it.

Recycling Today (RT): Why did you feel compelled to make repurpose?

John Sacco (JS): The simple answer is I'm sick and tired of the narrative of what our industry is and that there was a space for me to do it because nobody was doing it—not steel manufacturers, not trade associations—nobody was doing it. So, it was like, “You know what, I enjoy creating content. I have enjoyed my podcast.”

I had this idea years ago for our company called “Fields to the Mills,” where we would show Sierra doing our demolition projects in the field, taking the recycled iron into Sierra [and] processing it in one of our machines and shipping it to the mill. I thought that'd be a cool story. We were going to do that, and things kind of shifted on us. And then I call my friend Jay Rabinowitz and say, “You know, I've got this idea.” And we started talking about this idea. He goes, “… You know, we have a shredder yard 20 miles down the road from SSAB.”

And so what started as an idea for something else turned into this. And then the project just got exciting. Like, oh, wait a minute, we need to start talking about what it is our industry does. What it is recycled materials mean to everyday life. Because, quite frankly, the response to Repurposed is exactly what I thought it would be. People had no idea that their daily life depended on what we do.

RT: It can be hard to believe when you're in it every day that some people are completely clueless.

JS: It's not some people; it's all people. Most, if not all, people truly don't understand that the car they drive is made from recycled metals. For the most part, the highways, the steel that we use in highways, all the rebar’s recycled iron. But, the fact of the matter is, most people don't know. And they have no idea that the refrigerator’s made from recycled iron. … Basically, most people just don't know it came from recycled materials. That's where it starts. And then the mills melt it [and] create a new product. The first step of manufacturing is creating the product you can manufacture something from.

So, what compelled me to do it in the end was it was an idea I had that grew, and [my brother and I were] willing to take the chance of investing the money … to make it come to reality. … And I think the response has been incredible.

RT: How long did it take for you to develop all of season one?

JS: Season one was filmed in July in Davenport, Iowa, and down in Muscatine Montpelier were SSAB was. And then we did filming right after Thanksgiving, where I'm in a studio where I have the black background. And what we did is we kept running small, little two- to five-minute segments, to see what tone are we trying to capture?

… So, there were some technical things that we had to do [related to music rights], so from July to Feb. 2 is how long it took to get season one done.

RT: That is a relatively short time frame when you're thinking about everything else that you're doing in addition to creating the docuseries.

JS: Yeah, so it's exciting.

You know, season two is going to be on paper and forestry.

The hardest thing in developing the docuseries wasn't so much the footage—the filming was easy—it was creating the narrative behind it. What did it want to sound like? What did it want to look like? How was I going to present? And once we found that, you know, it's just a matter of reviewing all the interviews from the subject matter experts.

RT: Did you have a relationship with SSAB before approaching them about filming?

JS: The truth is Jay Rabinowitz set it up.

The problem we had with some people who turned us down was they didn't know what we were about. We didn't have Discovery Channel by our name. We didn't have a National Geographic by our name. We didn't have Netflix. We didn't have Apple TV. And we didn't have Amazon Prime by our name. So, people didn't know what we were capable of doing. I knew it was going to be phenomenally shot. I knew it. So did Darren Doane, the guy who's my editor and director. We had no track record there. … Some people even said, “Why do we need you here; we can do it ourselves.” And then that kind of compelled me to do it because people still aren't doing it. Here I am, I already released it. And I'm a nobody in the world of recycling, if you will.

But it's been a docuseries that's opened so many eyes. And I have people who have actually added this to a curriculum to university and classes they are teaching. The response has been beyond phenomenal.

We don't get money for this. You need to understand that we don't have a royalty. We're not like “Hey, watch it; we make money.”

We're more interested in spreading the message, educating people exactly what it is. We're not junk, we're not waste. We're not scrap. We're the recycled materials industry. And it’s important. Words do matter. … And how we describe our industry does matter. And this is the first step.

RT: That kind of ties into the work ISRI is doing on the language that we're using to describe the industry. Do you have any role in the committee that's working on that?

JS: Yes, actually, I was. It was a task force that I was assigned to chaired by Andy Wahl [of TAV Holdings]. Andy Wahl had this committee for a rebranding, and then they appointed me to head to task force. … Andy and I worked side by side. I got together a great group of people. Let me name them: Ed Kangeter, Jacqueline Lotzkar, Kyle Eastman, Steven Touch, Joel Littman, Neil Bice, Bruce Blue, Lindsey Mourelatos, Mark Weintraub.

… We went back to the executive committee and Robin and said, “We've got to a certain point, but we need to go to another level.” And that's where they brought in Michael Maslansky [of maslansky+partners.] Because Michael is a wordsmith. That’s his business. It's not what you say, it's what they hear. And he was able to put together the lexicon for our trade association of how we should be describing our industry. And the bottom line is, let's quit talking about the inputs and let's talk about the outputs. And I knew that I was doing that already with Sierra’s social media. But what this helped me with was to clear the air of exactly how to start really describing things.

Repurposed, in my opinion, it's for everybody. Everybody should be sharing it not because it puts our name out there [but] because sharing it educates. I mean, kids in school need to see this because they don't know where their desk comes from. … And without recycled materials, especially recycled metals, how the hell are you going to build a hospital or an airport? And then recycled paper … so much of our food products, so much of our medical supplies are shipped in cardboard boxes. Recycled paper plays a really huge role in our daily lives.

RT: Do you have particular folks you hope to reach with the docuseries? Are you thinking it would be great if legislators can see it or policymakers?

JS: I've had a couple of conversations with people from Congress already who have watched it. And they basically say what everybody else says who's not in our industry says: “I had no idea. I had no idea the impact the recycled material industry has in our daily lives.”

Of course, this one’s about iron. But they also understand copper and aluminum and stainless as well.

… The more we can educate, the more our industry will be supported. Because there's a true lack of understanding of what it is we do. Everybody thinks recycling is the blue bin. Everybody thinks it's the aluminum can, the PET [polyethylene terephthalate] bottle. It's certainly been a drop in the bucket compared to what is truly being recycled daily in this country.

… I'm targeting anybody willing to listen, to watch, to understand, so that when people start thinking about what it is we do, they understand that without what we do, so much of your daily life doesn't exist. So, what I like to say, and I came up with this today, … comparing the recycled materials industry to waste, to junk is like comparing modern medicine to witchcraft. Modern medicine isn't witchcraft. Modern recycling has nothing to do with junk. Absolutely not.

RT: These are specification-grade commodities that get traded internationally and that are essential to our manufacturing supply chains. And so many people are oblivious to it.

JS: Look, in America, 72 percent of all new steel's made from recycled iron. Look at those window frames. What are they made out of? Aluminum. Where's that aluminum coming from? Recycled aluminum. Copper wiring has 33 percent recycled content at a minimum. So, go ahead and do all this without our industry. You couldn’t.

Our recycled iron saves in the 60 percentile of energy and CO2 emissions. Aluminum is in the 90 percentile. Copper’s a little less than aluminum. But think about that, because CO2 emissions do not have a border in this world.

So, our industry here in America, our military, our infrastructure, our day-to-day survival depends … on having a strong and vital steel industry to build these things. … It's vital to the nation's sovereignty and its independence. You can't have a military without steel, brass, copper [and] aluminum. … And this is the message. This is what I want people to understand: These stadiums, these hospitals, these bridges and highways, military vehicles and what have you, they're not made from “junk;” they're made from recycled materials.

RT: You mentioned earlier not having somebody like Discovery or Netflix or what have you behind your name when you were approaching steel mills about filming. Is there a possibility now that you’ve produced the series that it can be picked up?

JS: Truly, I don't care if it ever gets to any of those places, because … it's not about the money. It's about the message. It's about a real message about real life, and the impact our industry has on our daily lives. That's what it's about. And if one of these services see it, like it [and] want it, great, if they don't want it, great, I don't care.

Let me make this perfectly clear. Yes, I'm the guy in front of the camera. Obviously, my brother is my partner. He’s behind us all the way. That needs to be said. But, the fact of the matter is, it's not about us. It's not about me. It's about what we are as an industry. That's what this is all about.

RT: I was just wondering what you learned in the process of making the season one episodes that was most eye-opening for you?

JS: I learned about how technology has advanced in steelmaking to where now new steel made from recycled iron with the additives and things that they put into the steelmaking and the engineering that goes in the steel … [creates] steel that is strong but doesn't weigh as much as the old fashioned steel. … And they can create steel that is actually stronger and better than steel that's made from virgin iron. 

*This article was edited March 16 to correct Darren Doane's last name. It was misreported as Bell.