St. Joseph BUSINESS JOURNAL
Fall 2013
10
TopEmployerProfile Each quarter in the Business Journal, we will profile one or more of St. Joseph’s top employers. A top employer may be based on number of employees, or because the business operates in a St. Joseph-focused industry. Often, residents may recognize a company name, but may not know exactly what the company does. In this question and answer piece, learn a little bit more about:
Advantage Metals Recycling, LLC Recycling Rick Archer, Plant Manager 750 S Fourth St. St. Joseph, MO 64501 (816) 279-7403 www.advantagerecycling.com
Advantage Metals Recycling is one of Kansas and Missouri’s largest scrap recyclers. What kind of materials do you accept and who can bring you their scrap? Anyone with a valid state-issued ID can sell us their scrap material: aluminum cans, cast iron, copper, appliances, brass, automobiles, stainless steel, demolition scrap, barn tin. Advantage has recently made improvements in the way you process automobile recycling. Please explain these improvements. Last year we purchased an Enviro–rack which now allows us to drain all the fluids (fuel, oil, & antifreeze) from the vehicles that are being purchased as scrap. This helps tremendously for customers who otherwise wouldn’t be able to drain their vehicles themselves (like the elderly). We then sell the used fuel &
used oil to EAP approved vendors. What happens with the metal once it leaves the St. Joseph facility? We send material out to several different places. We transport some material to Kansas City, we send some material directly to the mill using railcars and a mix of nonferrous materials (brass, copper, batteries, various grades of aluminum) are transferred to Kansas City to be housed until there is enough of each commodity to be shipped directly. Anyone who has been to your facility in the past and goes back today sees a big difference in the look of the facility. Could you describe the improvements you’ve made to your property? We have recently relocated our truck scale, as well as added a second truck scale to our facility. This has helped tremendously with
reducing the amount of over flow traffic sitting and waiting on Fourth Street. It has also decreased the time it takes a customer to bring us their material almost in half! Concrete has been poured so customers have a smooth clean surface to drive on and we’ve also added ATM machines for our customers to receive easier cash payment as they exit the facility. Advantage Metals Recycling has been green long before it was trendy. Can you describe some of the ways you embrace recycling and why? For instance, Brad said that Advantage is owned by NuCor, which is the largest purchaser of ferrous scrap in North America. Brad said that recycled steel is much cheaper than new steel. Making new aluminum from old aluminum uses 95 percent less energy than producing the same product from ore. New products made from steel
contain, on average, between 60 percent & 75 percent recycled steel. It takes 66 percent less energy to make new steel from recycled material than from ore. Advantage has a close relationship with the St. Joseph Police Department to ensure the materials you receive are brought to you with the owners’ permission. Could you describe how you work with the authorities in this manner and why. We want to encourage people to recycle for the benefit of the environment and in return they receive some extra cash. We don’t want people to steal from one another to just try earning a quick buck or two, so we work closely with the law enforcement to try and eliminate this from happening. Once someone is arrested for selling stolen material we ban them from the yard & no longer purchase material from them.