By Donna Thornton/News Editor
Pacific Trading & Recycling in Gadsden purchases scrap metal from all over the U.S. and ships it to its scrapyards in Indonesia and China, and the locally owned company wants your recycling business, too.
Founding partner Tony Pearson said Pacific Trading & Recycling wants to purchase scrap iron and other metals from people in the community who want to recycle.
It is just one of the ways the business, which opened in October 2013, strives to stay connected to the community. The business is dedicated to improving the environment by making metal recycling available to individuals in this area, as well as industrial clients.
The business does a large volume of recycling from sources across the country, Chuck Brown, of Pacific, said.
“We are one of the largest recyclers of electric meters in the country,” Brown said, “and of electrical wire.”
Pacific Trading & Recycling owns scrap yards in Indonesia and China, he said. Some scrap metal is sold locally; about 80 percent of the scrap metal purchased at the business goes to those scrap yards. Pearson said most of the steel that comes into the scrap yard is sold to steel mills.
Recycling steel rather than producing steel from ore saves about 70 percent in energy, he said.
Pearson has 38 years experience in the scrap metal business while Brown, who retired from Schnitzer Steel earlier this year, has 39.
Brown said Pearson started the business in 2006. Around two years ago, Pearson and his partners decided they wanted to operate a full service scrap yard, taking in scrap iron, steel and other metals.
“We worked with the City of Gadsden, and with Mike McCain at the Industrial Development Board to purchase property and build this facility,” Pearson said.
The property purchased is 18 acres in the Gadsden Industrial Park, behind Buffalo Rock and Penske at 300 Industrial Parkway.
The facility is a 35,000 square foot structure. Construction got underway in 2012 and the business opened last month with 14 employees.
“We have a full service transportation department,” Brown said, “with containers and pick up service for clients such as industrial stamping facilities.”
“We believe we have the most modern, most environmentally responsible scrap yard in the south,” Pearson said. He said the business receives scrap metal from industries as far away as Oregon, California and New Hampshire.
“We give them the assurance that their scrap metal is going to be handled in a way that is environmentally responsible,” Pearson said.
The same assurance is there, Brown said, for individuals who want to better their environment by recycling.