BUSINESS IS BOOMING
FOR ITI SCRAP METAL RECYCLING
PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  
By Christine Schirmer

CHESAPEAKE, VIRGINIA -- Business is good – practically double what it was at this time last year – according to Thomas Quirke, President of ITI Inc. Scrap Metal Recycling.

ITI (purchased from United Winner Metals in February 2002) processes 7,000 to 10,000 tons of both ferrous and non-ferrous scrap metal per month, sorting, compressing and sheering or chopping the material before loading it onto a boat and exporting it to shipyard accounts in the far east as well as working peddler, roll of container and truckload quantity accounts.

"Our location here in Chesapeake is right on the water, which is a big advantage for us as we can load directly on to the ships. We are also right by several major highways," said Quirke. ITI, which also has a facility in Tampa, FL and a feeder yard in Elizabeth City, NC, does steady business. Heavily loaded vehicles ranging from industrial dump trucks to personally owned pick-ups make their way across the scales before their contents are graded, priced, sorted and unloaded for processing.


Kelly S. Wagner (left, ITI Scrap Metal Recycling manager, talks to Matthew Skipper while Jody Turner maneuvers the company’s Sennebogen duty cycle wheeled crane to move a pile of scrap metal over to the Lindeman Sheer for reduction. Located in Chesapeake, VA, ITI processes between 7,000 and 10,000 tons of scrap metal a month. 

Next to the scales, the piece of equipment that sees the most action is the Lindeman Sheer with its 70-foot Central Conveyer and shaker table.

"This machine’s been around a long time," observed manager Kelly Wagner. "It takes a beating and requires a lot of regular maintenance. But usually, the belt lasts a couple of years, which is really good when you consider the wear and tear."

Ferrous material either goes straight to the sheerer for processing or is taken to another area where prepared material is unloaded by magnet crane or judged torchable. "We basically have three types of cranes Sennebogen, Fuchs and Liebherr," Quirke explained. "We’re more or less leaning towards wheeled machines instead of the tracks because they get around the yard a lot quicker and you don’t have the wear and tear to the undercarriage, drive trains and drive motors.

"Liebherr is the industry leader and does offer wheeled models, but they are very pricey, and so are replacement parts. These other brands are lesser priced, but only time will tell if they’ll hold up as well as Liebherr."

Non-ferrous metals are also weighed, sorted and graded. Like most recycling facilities, ITI is equipped with stroke balers and choppers, but what it has that many other centers this size don’t have is an aluminum smelter also known as a sweat furnace.

"We just got this thing up and running," Wagner said of the American 990 Aluminum Smelter that the company purchased used. "We can run it with just two men, one operating the door and the other operating the forklift" and pushing the charges into the smelter where aluminum is melted down and turned into igots or sows.

With the stock market plummeting steadily, prices haven’t been what they were a month and a half ago, but it is still better than this time last year, according to Quirke, who promises to pay the best prices for scrap metal.

"Its hard to say exactly what the prices are, because they fluctuate so much with the market. Right now prices are going down," Quirke said. "But I’d say the industry is a lot better off today then it was last year thanks in great part to Tariff 201, which really gave the domestic steel industry an edge."

 

 

For more information on the full line of Sennebogen Green Line material handlers contact:

Constantino Lannes, President, Sennebogen LLC
2835 Jeff Adams Drive, Charlotte, NC 28206
Call toll free 1-877-309-0099 or fax (704) 347-8894
Email - sales@sennebogen-na.com
Visit the web site www.sennebogen-na.com