Alter Trading Corp. purchased the assets of North Star Recycling’s Cedar Rapids, Iowa, operation. Alter, which already has a facility in Cedar Rapids, will use the new facility to supplement Alter’s existing supply.
Alter Trading began operations at the facility July 2. The company, headquartered in St. Louis, is one of the largest scrap recycling companies in the Midwest. The company already has a Cedar Rapids facility that it has operated since 1986.
Combining the two facilities will allow for synergies between the two yards, with shared management to run both operations. The recently acquired facility has some scrap processing equipment, although it will primarily act as a feeder yard.
North Star Recycling, an affiliate of North Star Steel Co., had operated at the site in Cedar Rapids for eleven years.
The combination of the two scrap yards will give Alter Trading more room, as well as create synergies.
According to Les Niemi, general manager of North Star Steel’s Wilton, Iowa, facility, “North Star has had an excellent long-term relationship with Alter, and has enjoyed working with the ferrous recycling industry in the Cedar Rapids area. We are confident that Alter will develop a similar relationship with those accounts, and we look forward to Alter servicing our needs in the Cedar Rapids area.”
Alter Trading expects to continue to expand its position in the Midwest. The company now has scrap metal processing operations in Council Bluffs, Davenport, Waterloo, Dubuque, Des Moines and Burlington, Iowa; Lincoln, Norfolk and Grand Island, Nebraska; Quincy and Rock Falls, Illinois; La Crosse, Wisconsin; and St. Paul, Minnesota in addition to the two Cedar Rapids sites.