Waupaca Foundry Inc., headquartered in Waupaca, Wisconsin, produces iron castings largely from scrap metal for use in the transportation, construction, agriculture and industrial markets. The company, which has been owned by Tokyo-based Hitachi Metals Group since 2014, says it is committed to continuous improvement and dedicated to “advancing technology, safety and productivity.” One item missing from that list is sustainability.

An original recycler

Founded as Pioneer Foundry in 1871 by John Rosche on the banks of the Waupaca River, the company took the Waupaca Foundry Inc. name in 1955 when Clifford Schwenn purchased it.

Waupaca Foundry operates six iron casting foundries and two machining facilities in Wisconsin, Indiana, Tennessee and Illinois, as well as a plant in Ironwood, Michigan, where castings produced at its Waupaca foundries are cleaned and finished. Recognizing that capacity exceeded demand, in the summer of 2020, the company closed a seventh foundry in Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania. That plant primarily made automotive suspension components.

Waupaca Foundry says it melts up to 9,500 tons of iron daily across its six foundries.

Brian Powell, director of procurement and supply at Waupaca Foundry, says, “Approximately 85 percent of the materials used in our melt process come from recycled materials.”

He notes that in its 2019 fiscal year, Waupaca Foundry consumed 1 million tons of steel scrap in the production of its various grades of gray iron and ductile iron, including Hitachi Metals HNM Series high-strength and austempered ductile iron. Other metallic inputs include pig iron and copper.

The company purchases ferrous scrap from the automotive, appliance and general scrap market, Powell says, which includes tin cans.

“Melting 9,500 tons daily requires multiple strong partners,” he says. “Waupaca Foundry aims to source locally where, and as often as, possible. At any given time, there is only a four-hour supply of feedstock on the ground.”

According to Waupaca’s annual sustainability report, 8 of its top 10 supplier relationships go back 25 years or more, and all suppliers are certified through a documented process.

Waupaca employs two types of melt processes—induction, or electric, and cupola.

“The advantage of electric melt is the flexibility for frequent material changes and starts/stops,” he explains. “Cupola melting is still generally recognized as the most economical melting process if the furnace is operated continuously, such as is the case at Waupaca Foundry.”

Powell adds that even though the cupola process is 300 years old, it is the more efficient of the two processes and the primary method used at Waupaca.

Given its use of continual and large batch melting, he says Waupaca Foundry has high standards for its scrap. “There is an audit and review to ensure tramp [metals] are to the specification that allows Waupaca to meet our customers’ high quality standards,” Powell says. “It all starts with melt, and we work closely with our partners to ensure their standards are met.”

Waupaca Foundry Director of Environmental Engineering Bryant Esch says the company melts approximately the weight of the Eiffel Tower daily across its operations.

When scrap enters the company’s foundries, Esch says, it is sorted and sized “so it is optimal for our process,” which helps the company maintain production.

While he describes scrap usage as “one of the major cogs of sustainability” at Waupaca, it is not the only one.

Sustainable beyond scrap

Despite its significant use of ferrous scrap, Waupaca acknowledges that foundries also consume a good deal of energy and water and produce wastes, including foundry sand, which is why it has focused on the following sustainability goals for its 2020 fiscal year, which ends March 30:

• reduce energy use by 25 percent;
• reduce water use by 80 percent;
• promote alternative processes and maintain advanced pollution control technologies; and
• reduce spent foundry sand generation by 30 percent while promoting off-site reuse/recycling opportunities for remaining spent foundry materials.

Esch says that as of early January, Waupaca has achieved a 23 percent reduction in its energy use relative to 2010 and earned a U.S. Department of Energy 2020 Better Project Award for a system that removes humidity from the air entering the cupola at its Tell City, Indiana, foundry.

The federal program recognizes manufacturers for creating and implementing industrial energy and water efficiency projects, as well as renewable energy and energy resiliency projects.

Esch says plant engineers installed a desiccant cupola blast air drying system that removes water vapor from ambient air prior to introduction to the foundry’s cupola, enabling the company to use less energy in the form of coke in the melting process. “Every pound of water removed equals a certain amount of coke reduction,” he says.

“The system passes air through a desiccant air wheel which works like a filter to remove water from the air, increasing the efficiency of the combustion process,” Marco Gonzalez, corporate energy manager for Waupaca Foundry, says in a news release the company distributed after receiving the award in June of last year. “It’s like if you’re trying to light a barbecue during a rainy day, the moisture in the air will consume power from your charcoal and they will take longer to light. By removing the moisture from the air, the fuel can burn more efficiently.”

The cupola system also is designed to recover and return waste heat to the cupola’s melting zone, which further boosts the system’s energy efficiency, Esch adds.

In addition to the energy savings, the system reduces ash and solid waste produced during the melting process, he says.

The melting process represents 65 percent of the Tell City foundry’s total energy usage, with coke being the largest source of energy.

In addition to supporting the direct melting processes, excess “waste” heat from the cupola furnace supplies building heat and is used to heat water at Waupaca Foundry facilities in cold months. Heat recovery systems used at Waupaca plants provide 70 percent of the foundries’ space heating requirements and 100 percent of the plants’ hot water needs.

Esch says the company also wanted to reduce fresh water use in foundry pollution control and noncontact machine cooling applications. Each of the company’s foundries in Waupaca used 1 million gallons of water per day for these purposes. Plant upgrades substituted these single-use water cooling systems with closed-loop and air-cooled heat exchangers, cutting water demands by 67 percent, Esch adds, and reducing noncontact cooling water discharge to near zero.

The company’s sustainability efforts also have been recognized by the American Foundry Society, Schaumburg, Illinois. In 2020, Waupaca Foundry was awarded the Green Foundry Sustainability Award for initiatives that included implementing the ISO 50001 Energy Management System, a formal management system approach to energy reduction. To gain the ISO certification, the company says it created and implemented a program in energy management at its gray iron foundry Plant 1 in Waupaca and then reviewed and checked data to ensure consistent results. After 12 months of preparation and a verification audit by an independent registrar, the certification was granted in 2017.

Waupaca Foundry also recycles 450,000 tons of foundry byproducts annually, including sand. One grain of sand can be recycled approximately 50 times internally at the company’s foundries by cooling and reconditioning it, Esch says.

Sand that can no longer be recycled internally at Waupaca’s foundries is removed from the process for use in general construction, road construction, agricultural use and geotechnical fill, according to the company. About 75 percent of Waupaca’s sand goes off-site to be used in these applications.

The company’s sustainability initiatives and its focus on continual improvement have helped to position the company for future growth, Esch says.

Room for growth

“Waupaca will continue to expand in markets in support of its customers’ growth,” Powell says. “This will be realized through key strategic capital investments throughout our facilities. And it can be seen in new technology, such as expanded use of automation, which carries positive social and environmental impacts.”

Upon completion of its 2020 sustainability goals, he says new three-year targets will facilitate ongoing improvements. “Waupaca is also investigating the procurement of long-term renewable energy, such as solar and wind power, using variable power purchase agreements, as well as to maximize the use of waste heat to work towards a carbon-net-zero business model.”

While sustainability will factor into the company’s future, Powell says Waupaca Foundry’s ongoing use of scrap could be challenged by the growing use of specialty metals in many industries. “The more high-strength steel, the more challenging it will be to use a straight scrap supply to melt iron. This indicates more reliance on virgin materials like pig iron, direct reduced iron, etc.,” he says.

For the time being, global trade issues are affecting scrap metal pricing.

Powell says, “The industry supports a global supply chain. Components and commodities move all over the globe.” However, tariffs have affected U.S. metal producers’ ability to sell globally, he adds. “The economic conditions created by tariffs artificially decrease demand with fewer buyers. This puts all the control in the U.S. mill market. We have seen dramatic raw material price increases recently. We expect this volatility will continue in 2021, which began in December 2020.”

However, the company does not view the growth in electric vehicle (EV) demand and production as a potential challenge, with Powell noting that EVs that run only on batteries are forecast to be just 10 percent of the vehicles produced in 2030. “[U]ntil then, [internal combustion] engines will still be installed, including [in] hybrid vehicles. Parts for internal combustion engines will continue to contribute to our portfolio.”

While EVs could lead to decreased demand for some engine components, the company says iron castings will remain in demand for suspension, braking and driveline components. Additionally, Waupaca says a hybrid-electrification model could present opportunities for new iron components.

Infrastructure impacts arising from EV growth also could increase demand for municipal, construction and other industrial components that the company manufactures. Because Waupaca Foundry is diversified across multiple market sectors, the company says it is well-positioned to adapt to these changes.

The author is editor of Recycling Today and can be reached at dtoto@gie.net. 

Sustainability is central to all three of Jim Bango’s businesses in North Haven, Connecticut.

Custom Recycling Inc., his wood pallet recycling and remanufacturing business, primarily uses recycled pallets to make new pallets. Russell Partition, a corrugated partition maker, consumes virgin material, but Bango says the company recycles production scrap. Atlantic Pulp, the newest of the three businesses, consumes 100-percent-recycled materials to make molded pulp packaging, such as wine trays, beer trays and corner caps.

Atlantic Pulp consumes about 450 tons of recovered paper per year to produce its molded pulp packaging. The company uses about 70 percent old corrugated containers (OCC) and 30 percent old newspapers (ONP) or similar material to make its molded pulp.

“We have a couple of different paper recyclers that we buy from and [that] send us old newspapers,” Bango says.

Atlantic Pulp currently receives all of its ONP from a recycler in Connecticut. Bango says he is able to source most of the OCC from Russell Partition. He says the company is growing—it grew by about 30 percent in 2020 compared with 2019—so he may need to add raw material suppliers.

“Molded pulp and packaging businesses are exploding. … I’m glad I hung in there because, now, it’s showing something.” – Jim Bango, owner, Atlantic Pulp

The generation of ONP has declined in recent years as newspapers close, transition to digital-only publications or reduce the frequency of their print issues, but Bango says that hasn’t affected his business much. He adds that he’ll also accept some other recovered paper grades in lieu of ONP, such as coloring books and other light-colored recycled paper that can be pulped.

An unexpected start

Of Bango’s three businesses, he started Custom Recycling first in 1993. He says he had no intention of getting into the corrugated partition or molded pulp businesses—he wasn’t familiar with either of those industries. Bango says how he got involved with Russell Partition and eventually started Atlantic Pulp is “a long story.”

Custom Recycling’s business was expanding in 2005, and Bango says he needed extra space to park trailers. Russell Partition operated in the same industrial park as Custom Recycling, so he says he talked with Russell Partition’s owner at the time, Ed Russell, to see whether he would be willing to sell him the extra space for his trailers. In addition to the space, Russell was willing to sell Bango his business. While he says that offer was unexpected, it was a challenge Bango was willing to take on.

“It was something I felt comfortable with,” he says of acquiring the corrugated partitions business. “It was packaging in addition to the pallet business. I would be calling on a lot of the same people I had leads to already.”

The transition to the corrugated partition business went smoothly, but Bango says he encountered some setbacks a few years later with the onset of the Great Recession. He says one of Russell Partition’s largest customers—a scented candle manufacturer—informed him that it was planning to switch from using corrugated partitions to molded pulp packaging. “They said if I could figure out how to make molded pulp, they would buy from me,” he says. “We had such a good relationship, so we started looking into molded pulp, found a machine and brought that in 2010.”

Bango began Atlantic Pulp to produce molded pulp packaging in 2010. He says the learning curve to manufacture molded pulp was steeper than he had expected and it was challenging to secure the capital to buy a three-piece machine that could pulp, form and dry molded pulp. Then, once he made a deal on the machine, Bango says its delivery was delayed. To add to the uphill battle, he says, the candle manufacturer backed out on purchasing molded pulp packaging from Atlantic Pulp.

“We end up ultimately not doing one dime worth of business with the company we were in business for,” he says.

Bango continues, “My other two businesses were helping to prop this new business up that year.”

Despite Atlantic Pulp’s tough start, Bango says he had to stay in business because of his investment in the molded pulp machine.

He says his machine had the ability to produce wine trays, beer trays and corner caps for packaging furniture. So, he decided to start to grow by finding customers who needed molded pulp packaging for wine bottles.

“The only path I had to stay in business was wine trays,” Bango says. “So, I started to scour the area for anybody who was shipping wine online—wineries on Long Island and Connecticut and Finger Lakes, New York. The only way I could grow was through wine.

He adds, “Because of the other two businesses I had, I was able to withstand these problems and keep working. I got up every day and put one foot in front of the other. I treated each day like it was the first day I was in business.”

Atlantic Pulp hung in through the tough start, and Bango says it has found a niche market in winemakers and beer companies trying to sell their products online.

“It was tough, but we ultimately figured the business out,” he says. “Also, if it weren’t for my Operations Manager Steve Chuka, I would not be here.”

“The only way I could grow was through wine.” – Jim Bango, owner, Atlantic Pulp

Bango adds that he would like to expand to service new markets in addition to wine, beer and furniture packaging, but there are some challenges to expanding.

He says, “I’d love to break into a different market, but the problem is that with molded pulp, the tooling is so expensive. You need a lot of the same size widget to make sense to add a machine. I would love to get another machine, but it presents some logistical and space problems.”

Experiencing benefits from the Amazon effect

Bango says he is sad to admit that the COVID-19 pandemic “has done wonders” for businesses that provide packaging. He says, “It’s the Amazon effect—everybody is just staying home and buying online.”

Since the pandemic started, Atlantic Pulp has expanded its customer base with more winemakers calling Bango from across the country. He says he has to run his machine in two shifts six days per week to keep up with the demand. If demand persists, he says, he might need to buy a second machine.

Before the pandemic, Bango says he noticed demand for molded pulp packaging rising as more companies wanted to move away from plastic and switch to paper-based packaging.

He says he suspects that demand for molded pulp packaging will calm down once the pandemic dies down, but he thinks the prepandemic interest in sustainable packaging will continue. Bango says he also expects his customer base to stay the same after things normalize following the pandemic.

“We were growing anyway, and I think some of the new customers who have found us and have witnessed our interest in servicing them will stick with us,” he says. “Molded pulp and packaging businesses are exploding. For us, there weren’t as many [molded pulp manufacturers] on the East Coast that could make wine and beer packaging, so this has been positive for me. I’m glad I hung in there because, now, it’s showing something.”

The author is Recycling Today’s managing editor and can be reached by email at msmalley@gie.net.

Harris appoints new president

Richard “DJ” VanDeusen has been hired as the president of The Harris Waste Management Group Inc., a subsidiary of Avis Industrial Corp., headquartered in Upland, Indiana. He will be responsible for all aspects of the operation and management of Harris and its global product and service offerings.

VanDeusen spent 20 years with General Electric and eight years with Atlanta-based WestRock, gaining executive leadership experience in operations, supply chain and finance. Most recently, he was the vice president of finance at Altisource Portfolio Solutions in Atlanta.

Gregory King, president and CEO of Avis, says, “We are pleased to have such a gifted leader and someone with a deep background in the recycling industry join the Avis team and lead the charge at Harris.”

VanDeusen replaces King, who was promoted to his current position with Avis in October of last year.

VanDeusen holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from Siena College in Loudonville, New York, and is a graduate of the General Electric Financial Management Program.

Cordele, Georgia-based Harris has been a supplier to the recycling industry for 130 years, manufacturing ferrous and nonferrous processing equipment. The company’s products include balers, compactors, conveyors, shears and shredders that are sold worldwide. Harris has manufacturing facilities in Cordele and Baxley, Georgia, with an additional office in Tewkesbury, United Kingdom.

Avis Industrial is the parent company of nine wholly owned subsidiaries: AI International Inc., Louisville, Kentucky; The American Baler Co., Bellevue, Ohio; Crankshaft Machine Co., Jackson, Michigan; Edgerton Forge Inc., Edgerton, Ohio; The Harris Waste Management Group; James Steel & Tube Co., Madison Heights, Michigan; Pacific Forge Inc., Fontana, California; Peninsular Cylinder Co. Inc., Roseville, Michigan; and Sellick Equipment Ltd., Harrow, Ontario.

Alter names senior vice president, chief financial officer

Scrap metals processing company Alter Trading Corp., St. Louis, promoted Lisa Walden to the position of senior vice president and chief financial officer (CFO) Jan. 3. She previously served as the company’s interim CFO and continues to report to Jay Robinovitz, Alter president and CEO, following her promotion.

In a news release announcing Walden’s promotion, Alter says it is a strategic step to support the extension of the company’s growth strategy and to advance its succession planning. The company adds that it seeks to develop successors to its executive leadership positions from within.

Walden joined Alter in 2011. Before taking the interim CFO position, she served as senior vice president of finance and treasury. Alter says Walden has built an exceptional and professional finance team during her tenure, providing strong support to its operations and decisional support to senior management.

“Lisa has been a driving force in our growth and development over the past nine years,” Robinovitz says. “She has supported everything from our regional finance structure to our dynamic inventory process to our creative acquisition teams, all while developing a professional, operationally focused financial support team. I am so pleased that she has accepted the position as CFO.”

Founded in 1898, Alter is a privately owned, fifth-generation scrap processing and trading company and is ISO 9001 and 14001 certified. The company employs 1,325 people and operates 70 metal recycling facilities and seven trading offices in eight states, along with its representative sales office in Hong Kong.

AISI names Kevin Dempsey president, CEO

The board of directors for the Washington-based American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) has named Kevin Dempsey AISI president and CEO. Dempsey had been serving as interim president and CEO since June 2020, when he was appointed to succeed Thomas J. Gibson. Prior to that, Dempsey served as AISI’s senior vice president for public policy and general counsel since 2009.

“At a time when we are challenged not only by the global pandemic but by unfair trade practices and massive global steel overcapacity, the AISI member companies have the utmost confidence in Kevin’s leadership and expertise,” says John Brett, chairman of AISI and president and CEO of ArcelorMittal USA.

Before joining AISI, Dempsey was a partner at Dewey & LeBoeuf, a global law firm. He has also served on Capitol Hill as counsel to Sen. John C. Danforth.

DJJ names new president

Cincinnati-based David J. Joseph Co. (DJJ) has promoted Mark Schaefer to president of the scrap recycling firm. He succeeds Craig Feldman, who remains an executive vice president of DJJ’s parent company Nucor Corp., based in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Since joining DJJ in 1985, Schaefer has served in a variety of roles, including brokerage representative and district manager in the ferrous trading business; vice president of logistic services; president of the U-Pull & Pay auto salvage business unit; and executive vice president of the DJJ recycling and brokerage groups. He was appointed Nucor general manager in 2013 and then vice president in 2014.

Schaefer is a graduate of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and earned his MBA from Denver University.

Founded in 1885, DJJ describes itself as one of the largest scrap brokers and processors in the United States. DJJ operates six regional scrap recycling companies in the U.S., contributing to a network of more than 60 facilities. The company also operates 12 self-serve used auto parts stores and 12 domestic and international ferrous and nonferrous scrap brokerage offices that trade scrap as well as ferro-alloys and specialty pig iron.

Jacob Bronstein

CEO of Merrillville Metal Recycling

From a young age, Jacob Bronstein considered pursuing a career in the scrap industry. When he was 13 years old, he says his parents did business with General Iron and took him to see the yard in Chicago.

“That gave me my first exposure to the business,” he says. “There were so many moving parts [and] awesome equipment.

He adds, “It was implanted in my mind that this could be a possible career path.”

Then, about three years ago, one of his neighbors, Bobby Katz, helped Bronstein get his foot in the door in an operations role at Maine Scrap Metal in Illinois. Bronstein says his job with Maine Scrap Metal was similar to an apprenticeship and helped him to develop a stronger work ethic.

In 2019, Bronstein set out to launch Merrillville Metal Recycling in Merrillville, Indiana, a full-service scrap metal company dedicated to servicing commercial and industrial scrap metal generators. He says his company opened for business in 2020 at the height of the pandemic.

“We were supposed to have a ribbon-cutting ceremony, but that was canceled,” he says. “We opened when economic activity came to a standstill.”

“A lot of mentors and friends have said, ‘If you can make it through this, you’ll make it through other ebbs and flows in the scrap business.’”

Bronstein’s initial reaction to opening during a pandemic was fear, but he adds that the experience has helped him to develop character. “A lot of mentors and friends have said, ‘If you can make it through this, you’ll make it through other ebbs and flows in the scrap business.’”

Recycling Today (RT): What were some of the challenges with starting Merrillville Metal Recycling, and how did you overcome them?

Jacob Bronstein (JB): Where do I start? Everything from raising capital to zoning to construction with regard to cost overruns and change orders and, of course, opening up at the height of the coronavirus [pandemic was a challenge].

I wrote a business plan [and] secured my first capital commitment in April of 2019, closed on the site and hired an architect and civil engineer due to the fact that the property had to be rezoned from light industrial to a conditional use as a recycling station. There were enormous risks and upfront costs due to the fact of being unsure on how the planning commission or zoning appeals board would rule in our case.

Getting the property rezoned during 2019 consumed a lot of time. We would get back from the city with regard to our submittals and would further have to make iterations to appease the city, which was costly.

RT: Could you share any stories from your first year in business?

JB: When we first opened our doors during the height of the pandemic, I was only going to the bank several times a week for cash. As we continued to grow, I was making more frequent runs to the bank. ... I became very familiar with all the bank tellers at my local branch. They all know me on a first-name basis—I would ask about their dogs or spouses. The frequency of bank runs was a good barometer for growth.

RT: Where do you see the scrap recycling industry heading in the near-term future?

JB: I think the future of the industry is that the steel manufacturing process is going to become more vertically integrated as manufacturers seek more scrap feedstock as technology improves and greater margins are realized as a result. ... I believe the entire commodity value chain will shift toward being more heavily concentrated on securing scrap supply.