Wendt Corp., Buffalo, N.Y., has installed an MTB wire chopping line at Upstate Shredding’s Owego, N.Y., headquarters location. The high-volume chopping line, commissioned in August of 2013, represents the first equipment purchase of its kind for the company, Upstate reports.
In business since 1996, Upstate Shredding is a privately held scrap metal processor based on the East Coast, with 15 locations throughout New York and Pennsylvania. The company has expanded in recent years, adding new locations. In 2013 Upstate says it processed approximately 1 million tons of ferrous and 200 million pounds of nonferrous metal.
According to Upstate Shredding, as exporting materials outside of the U.S. tightened in recent years, the company saw the potential a chopping line could provide by not only helping to increase profits for the company but also by providing the ability to further process insulated copper wire from ASR (automobile shredder residue). “Due to problems in exporting to China, due to import restrictions, we needed to be able to process it here in the United States,” says Adam Weitsman, owner of Upstate Shredding – Ben Weitsman.
Weitsman says the company wanted to make an educated decision regarding wire chopping equipment. “[MTB] are a large processing company, so we felt they would have the most experience with the product,” he says.
With the installation of the MTB chopping plant, Upstate Shredding has the opportunity to process a wide variety of products. More specifically, the line provides the company with the ability to refine low-grade insulated copper wire from ASR into copper chops that are more than 99 percent pure, the company says.
The company says it plans to chop a 12-month backlog of materials and then will move onto processing copper and aluminum insulated wire from its own feeder yards as well as from other shredder operators.
The chopping line features a BDR 2400 prechopper, two BAT 1200 granulators, air density separators and proprietary separation equipment.
“This installation puts North America back in play,” says Tom Wendt, president of Wendt Corp. “This is an upgrade that allows for significantly increased domestic sale of copper, not just for export. The MTB lines are the only proven method to upgrade low-grade wire from ASR into high grade, 99.6 percent pure copper.”
Wendt Corp. is the exclusive North American distributor of MTB equipment, parts and service. MTB, based in France, has more than 30 years of experience manufacturing wire and cable chopping systems and is also France’s largest wire processor, processing more than 30,000 tons of copper and aluminum cables yearly. Because the company processes wire and cable in addition to manufacturing equipment, MTB focuses on providing new applications, designs and purpose-built machines for wire and cable chopping, granulating, sorting, cleaning and sizing, Wendt Corp. says.
