New York scrap metal networks

Hello! I am a student currently researching on the scrap metal industry in New York, which seems to be one of the fastest growing exports of the US. I wonder if any of you could give me some information on where New York City sends our scrap metal for processing or refinement, and if possible, the quantities by which we send them. Do we have to ship most of our metals to far-away states, or are they melted down somewhere in the city before they are sold to other countries? Also, if we do melt process scrap metal in a dense urban city, how big would the pollution risk be, and how would that be mitigated?

The research is part of a proposal to revive some of the manufacturing jobs in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. I want to know if a scrap metal refinement plant is feasible on that site and if it would be beneficial to the city. Any information is appreciated!

I am going to assume that your idea involves the use of government funds to get this started. Going with this assumtion I would recommend contacting companies in the U.S. that currently process steel and ask them why not set up at that location. What conditions would justify them investing their money in such a undertaking.

Then you could contact companies that process Al and Cu to determine what they would require to invest. Not all companies process to new all types of metal.

On the enviormental question the easiest would be to move the proposed plant to New Jersey or perhaps Indiana then no polution problems in NYC.

Seriously look at what has happen with our economy over the last several years, the largest federal government spending and the lack of jobs is killing us.

If you want to get people employed in this country and keep the scrap metal in this country allow manufacturing to make sense to investors. If the risks are too high investors run the other way leaving the easiest most profitalbe avenue that being export the material.

If you were to study history you might discover that the colonies here and other areas were set up to ship raw materials to the home country and have finished goods sent back. That's why here in the colonies citizens were not allowed by law to produce their own finished goods,as in shovels, etc.

So what are we doing now as a country well much of our raw materials are being shipped to China and finished goods shipped back. I can't imagine my comments being helpful in your research but its what I have to contribute.

Best of luck with your research, Mike

The problem is the EPA. It would cost so much just to get through all of the EPA regulations it would take years to make a profett. Then all the regulations would change and you would have to go through all the red tape again. This is why so many companies have had to move over sea's.

Cephei-

Thanks for the genuine interest in the recycling industry! Most people on the "outside" never actually take the time to consider the immense benefit to our economy that this industry provides. Instead, they focus on the negatives.

Unfortunately, the questions that you are asking are significantly beyond the scope of what most of the members here can answer accurately.

ISRI.org would be a good place to start your research. They are the principal professional organization for scrap metal processors and other recycling enterprises.

Thanks for the leads! They're certainly worth checking out; hopefully I can find enough quantifiable information that can be mapped out in a thesis. I am very interested in the future for the role of manufacturing within the United States. The decline of manufacturing has been a phenomenon that has been happening since the 1960s, when the Fordist industrial expansion from wartime WW2 ran out of momentum. A counterculture of "hip consumerism" followed, where we see the popularization of rebellious interests against the corporate structure. Niche markets, trends, economic bubbles, and planned obsolescence required that the industry become highly mobile and flexible in terms of mass production (a la Apple, Nike, etc), which mean that they had to be outsourced. Certainly, some regulatory agencies are part to blame.

Developed countries outsourced manufacturing and shifted into selling services instead. Right now our biggest export are in the form of culture (royalties), and telecommunication services. Scrap metal is the largest material export. We throw away all the by-products of our hyper-accelerated society as soon as they are deemed obsolete (All those phones that still work perfectly fine), they get sent somewhere (This is what I'm still researching here) to be processed, sold to China, who manufacture something to sell back to us at profit.

It is a very unfortunate situation. But scrap metal is one of the biggest industrial opportunities left. At the height of Rome, goods poured in from every facet of its empire, while the only things pouring out were trash. I intended to propose a scrap processing facility within a major city precisely because cities were built around manufacturing, it is the cause of their formation. Companies situate their factories on ideal locations along the waterfront and require workers to live in close proximity. Residential neighborhoods that eventually grew into suburbia sprawled all around, requiring more services to tend to a growing population, and so the city grows. Without manufacturing, there is no point to having a Metropolis. An export of telecommunications and royalties do not need a dense working environment; you could work anywhere and still have instantaneous proximity to a co-worker across the world.

What's going to happen to the city if that's the case? Shifting manufacturing to Indiana is a good solution for pollution, but then the city might as well pack up and move over there. If you consider the amount of fuel it requires to transport trash to recycling centers, it might completely offset the amount of resources saved, rendering the net process useless. The benefit to having a major recycling center within a city is so that the trash does not need to be transported so far away. Is it even a long-term solution to re-establish manufacturing presence in a dense city when clearly the river is flowing the opposite direction? The damage has been gradual and consistent for the previous half-century, and my question is either to pursue mitigation (bringing back manufacturing to stop the export of scrap) or adaptation (re-allocating our resources to maximize services in lieu of manufacturing)

I'm posting some of my research here so that some of you who are in the field might nit-pick at it :P. I am a sort of "outsider" to the scrap metal industry so my perspective might be limited or in some cases wrong, and it is very interesting to hear what people from other perspectives have to say.