by Joe Wilhelm Jr.
Staff Writer
Prevention and profit work well together for a Fortune 300 company with a facility on North Lane Avenue in Jacksonville.
CMC (Commercial Metals Company) Recycling has flourished in Jacksonville increasing equipment and services since it opened a recycling facility in the area in 1978. CMC has had a presence in Jacksonville for over 30 years, but the company, which is headquartered in Irving, Texas, has been been manufacturing, recycling and marketing steel and other metal products throughout the world since 1915.
The company purchases ferrous and nonferrous scrap metal from dealers and individuals. The recycled metals are sold to steel mills, specialty steel producers, high temperature alloy manufacturers, foundries, aluminum refineries and mills, copper and brass mills, and other consumers all over the world.
Recycling may be a profitable business, but it is also a costly business.
“Steel is very tough on the equipment,” said Mike Creel, area marketing manager for CMC Recycling. “Everything we do to break down the metal hurts the equipment, so it is a maintenance-heavy operation.”
Smoke billowed out of the shredder shortly after Creel made the statement, but he explained that it is very easy for a fire to spark when you combine the high temperatures of the summer and the heat contained in the metal after it is broken down. That’s why some employees are assigned to watch for and put out fires when they occur.
The shredder can handle all kinds of scrap metal from fence posts and metal shelving to refrigerators and automobiles. The items are broken down with the help of the “second largest engine in the area” at 4,000 horsepower.
“Yeah, JEA loves us,” said Creel.
A rotor is attached to the engine and bell-shaped “hammers” the size of an emergency tire are attached to the rotor. The hammers pound the metal through metal grates that are about a foot thick and the pieces are taken away on a conveyer belt. The steel is separated from the iron with the help of magnets and the different metals are directed to different piles on conveyor belts.
Final assembly of an automobile takes about 24 hours, but it can be shredded in about 20 seconds.
The piles that accumulate on the approximately 22-acre property arrive with the help of dealers and individual business people. A load of aluminum cans that could fill a small, in-ground pool was bought from a vendor in the Caribbean. At the same time the clunk and thud of individuals pitching their scrap metal out of trailers and truck beds could be heard at the back of the property.
“We get a lot of individuals who are on fixed incomes,” said Creel. “They get out early and they hustle.”
CMC hosts about 200 individual transactions a day.
Though the process is usually quick, inspectors carefully review the contents of each load to make sure it doesn’t present any environmental or safety issues. They look out for items that may contain lead, capacitors, mercury switches and make sure cfcs have been released from appliances.
People dropping off old propane grills need to disconnect them before the drop it off.
“It’s costly for us to recycle propane and other cylinders,” said Creel. “We have a special company that comes in once a year and empties the tanks. Once they are empty, then they can be recycled. We often find them left at the front door or tossed into one of the piles from people who realize they can’t recycle them.”
CMC does its part to help clean up the world it operates in. They have adopted elementary schools and hold “Clean Up Days” regularly. They also help the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives dispose of firearms.
“We toss them into the cars before we put them in the shredder,” said Creel.
356-2466