Waco Scrap Dealer Relocating Part of Plant

The outdoor industrial portion of M. Lipsitz and Company, a Waco, Tex., scrap metal company, is relocating to a new location in the city. Howevever, according to local published reports the company will still operate at the site, although it will shut its shredder and upgrade to a larger machine at the new location.

"We didn't have the room to put it here and felt like it would be better for us to now start developing a new site," company vice president Melvin Lipsitz said.

The company will still process lighter metals like copper, aluminum and brass at the existing facility, but most of that work will take place inside the company's 75,000 square feet of warehouse space downtown, company president Tom Salome said. The company's headquarters will also remain at Elm Avenue.

"We're moving the outdoor stuff because that makes it better for the area than having the heavy industrial processing right there in the neighborhood," he said. "I think it will be appropriate for the area we're moving into."

The company has recycling facilities in eight cities in Texas and Oklahoma and sells its recycled metals both domestically and internationally.

Waco officials praised the move, which they said will make the central operation more compatible with its neighboring residential and business districts. The shredder has resulted in some noise complaints in the past, said Margaret Mills, president of Downtown Waco, Inc., a nonprofit group that works to revitalize Waco's core.

But the business has taken steps to minimize its impact on the area, including building fences and planting trees to screen the piles of metal and the shredder, City Manager Larry Groth said. The business has also been a good neighbor as a participant in numerous economic improvement initiatives in East Waco and downtown, Mills said.

Lipsitz said the new shredder will be larger and faster and have better environmental controls. The company will add to its workforce to operate the new plant. They hope to have the new facility operational by the end of this y ear.

Salome said the company does not have plans to move the remaining operations to the new site, although it could be a long-term option.

"That takes a lot of moving, because there's 75,000 square feet of warehouse and equipment that would have to be moved," he said. Waco (Texas) Tribune