Scrap Metal Services acquires auto shredder

The metals recycling company Scrap Metal Services LLC (SMS), based in Chicago, has acquired 360 Degree Metal Recycling Inc.’s auto shredder and full-service scrap metal facility in New Carlisle, Indiana. The auto shredder sits on 26 acres (360 Degree Metal Recycling’s parent company was profiled in the December 2012 issue of Recycling Today ).

 

SMS, which was founded in 2005 by Jeffry and Richard Gertler, says the newly acquired facility is strategically located, allowing SMS to cost-effectively transport shredder feedstock, including vehicles and obsolete scrap, from its nine Northwest Indiana and Chicago retail facilities and auto parts operations. SMS says it expects to have the currently idle shredder running by the first half of September 2014.

 

American Pulverizer designed and built the auto shredder, which is an 80-inch-by-104-inch model that includes a hammermill with a Quad Plus 4,000-horsepower motor. The shredder was installed in 2012.

 

The shredded ferrous scrap produced at the newly acquired facility will be sold and shipped by truck and rail to steel mills throughout the Midwest, SMS says. The auto shredder residue (ASR), including Zorba and Zurik, will be sent to SMS’ recently opened heavy media plant in Blue Island, Illinois, where the company will undertake further separation of the material to extract additional metals.

 

“We have been looking at siting a major auto shredding operation in the Chicagoland or northern Indiana area for some time to primarily process our company’s growing shredder feedstock. Rather than add another shredder in this highly competitive marketplace, acquiring an existing shredding operation in the area, which met our company’s environmental standards, was economically prudent and strategically a good fit," says Jeffry Gertler, SMS CEO.

 

SMS operates more than 20 locations throughout the United States and Mexico. Its services include scrap processing, steel mill support services, ship breaking and oil rig dismantlement, intermodal/truck/railcar dismantling facilities and auto salvage and parts sales yards.