Scrap metal processors are becoming increasingly clever at wringing out the last dollar from their waste stream. That includes recovering cleaner, greater weights of high value nonferrous metals. Ben Davis, manager of the magnetics division at Huron Valley Steel Corporation is considered by many in the industry as the dean of non-ferrous recovery. He had this to say about the state of the business, “A lot of shredders today have gotten away from autos and are going to smaller, low speed shredders for white goods because the volume of autos has gone down. The other major development over the past few years was development of image technology that senses and separates various non-ferrous by shape and color.”
Huron, the largest processor of nonferrous in the world, buys from shredders in Canada and all over the United States except for some of the west coast states due to transportation costs and because west coast shredders export most of what they produce to Pacific rim countries, mostly to China. Headquartered in Trenton, Michigan, Huron operates recovery and recycling facilities in Belleville, Michigan and Anniston, Alabama, and has a joint-venture with HVF West in Tucson, Arizona. ...read more
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Prices up in non-ferrous industries
It has been a rough year for non-ferrous scrap metal recyclers, but executives on the front lines and experts who track the industry both predict better times ahead.
“I feel that we are on a very slow upward trend and before any of us realizes it we’ll all be singing ‘Happy Days Are Here Again.’ It’s the nature of the cyclical beast,” said Jeff Solomon, chief executive officer of Globe Metal Recycling Services Inc.
“Since so many producers shut down high-cost capacity in the face of low prices, there will be a shortage of all types of materials by the third quarter of this year.”
Volumes at the scrap metal dealer headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, were down approximately 25 percent year-to-date in August, Solomon said. Prices, meanwhile, have recovered from the lows hit in the last quarter of 2008, but the prices of non-ferrous scrap metal are still around 25 to 40 percent off of their highs.
The market for non-ferrous scrap is hurting the bottom line at Sims Metal Management Ltd., the world’s largest publicly-traded metals recycler, with operations in North America, the United Kingdom, Continental Europe, New Zealand and Asia. ...read more