EPA confirms green light for Sims shredder

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced a shredder operated by Sims Ltd. in Chicago has cleared another hurdle in its attempt to retain permission to shred metal on the site.

Sims announced in September that the Illinois EPA had approved the firm’s installation of an emissions control system at the site in the Pilsen neighborhood on the lower west side of Chicago, not far from Guaranteed Rate Field—home of the Chicago White Sox.

The U.S. EPA, meanwhile, has maintained a web page offering updates on its regulation of the shredder yard. In a post made Dec. 21, 2022, the EPA says it received Sims’ monitoring and sampling data from the Pilsen shredder yard in late November.

Subsequently, “The available, quality-assured monitoring data from October and November shows no pollutant concentrations that would cause human health effects from short-term exposure to the air in the area around the facility,” the EPA writes.

Among emissions measured were PM 10 (larger particulate matter), volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and several metal dusts, including lead.

The ability of Sims to receive its approval contrasts with the difficulties faced by Southside Recycling at its planned shredding facility in a neighborhood on Chicago’s south side. That firm, a business unit of the Ohio-based Reserve Management Group, has spent the early part of this decade seeking operating permits from the Chicago city government to start its shredding plant.