Kansas removes scrap supplier photo requirement

Laura Kelly, the governor of Kansas, has signed a bill that amends the state’s Scrap Metal Theft Reduction Act, which was ushered into law in 2015. The amendment removes a requirement that vehicles bringing end-of-life automobiles and other types of scrap to a yard must have their vehicles or license plates photographed.

According to an online report by KCSB radio of Liberal, Kansas, the amended law also “continues in existence certain exceptions to the Kansas Open Records Act” pertaining to the records kept by recyclers.

Text within the summary of the original 2015 law requires scrap dealers “to photograph the seller and any regulated items being sold and to keep the photographs with the transaction record and dealer’s register of information.”

The list of “regulated items” consisted of nearly a dozen types of metal, including aluminum (except used beverage containers, or UBCs), brass, bronze, copper, stainless steel, zinc, titanium, tungsten, nickel, platinum, palladium, rhodium, magnesium, lead and “any other nonferrous metal or any combination of nonferrous metals listed.”

Also listed as regulated are “bales of regulated metal,” junk vehicles and vehicle parts, including "the front clip consisting of the two front fenders, hood, grill and front bumper of an automobile assembled as one unit; and the rear clip consisting of those body parts behind the rear edge of the back doors, including both rear quarter panels, the rear window, trunk lid, trunk floor panel and rear bumper, assembled as one unit.”