Going With Glass: Delaware Valley Scrap Takes a New Direction

Jeff Borsecnik is assistant editor of Scrap Processing and Recycling.


Solomon Perez, part of a family of scrap processors active in the early part of the century, collected used glass containers in the late 1930s and early 1940s, selling what he could as reusables and marketing the rest as cullet to northern New Jersey glass manufacturers. He scuttled the effort when prices and demand fell.

Forty years later, Jack "Reds" Snyder, president of Delaware Valley Scrap Co. Inc. (Bristol, Pa.), took up where his former father-in-law left off, establishing nearby Otter Recycling Center to process and market glass as well as other household scrap. Snyder, a 35-year veteran of scrap processing, says, "I see our future in this segment of the business."

Even in the present, this segment of Snyder's scrap business isn't small. Otter processes about 40 tons per day of amber, green, and flint glass, as well as approximately 2 tons of aluminum cans, 5 tons of bimetal cans, and 3 1/2 tons of plastic bottles daily. The majority of the material is purchased in commingled lots from local municipalities under a county contract; the balance is primarily from communities in neighboring New Jersey and haulers serving apartment buildings and commercial facilities.

Up to 50 trucks deliver to the 2 1/2-acre material recovery facility (MRF) per day, filing steadily through from 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Otter can process about 25 tons of commingled recyclables in a shift and operates two shifts on weekdays and a half shift on Saturdays. The company could get enough material to operate around-the-clock, but current markets don't make it practical. In fact, admits Jack Snyder, "The more we take today, the more we lose."

It's been a tough year for Otter. Not only are glass markets glutted--one major cullet consumer dropped its buying prices by $20 per ton earlier in the year, reports Larry Snyder, facility manager--but prices are also down for other household scrap commodities, including aluminum cans, typically a MRF's most dependable source of income. Indeed, says Jack Snyder, it's a shaky time to be running a MRF. But, he says, "It's the only time to get into the business. That's my message to the scrap guys: 'Get in it now when it's good and cheap and find your niche. Later on it's going to take much bigger bucks, and once municipalities put in MRFs, you can forget about it."'

Delaware Valley got into the business of processing glass and other household scrap almost by chance. In the early 1980s, the scrap company purchased a weedy plot of ground offered for sale by another local processor--mostly to head off any competitors--says Jack Snyder. The firm toyed with the idea of using it for a facility to sell reusables or auto parts before deciding to head in the direction of postconsumer recycling.

Interest in municipal recycling programs was growing in Pennsylvania, and Delaware Valley decided to be "on-line and already there" when the state eventually acted, says Jack Snyder. The firm would be prepared to run a bottle-collection facility or a buyback center to purchase postconsumer materials, depending on what the state mandated, figuring operation of the two would be similar.

Otter, the resulting facility, began operating as a buyback center for glass and aluminum cans in 1984, taking its name from the adjacent street. To attract young families, the facility took advantage of its animal moniker: Walls in front of glass-collection pits were painted with an otter to mark the spot for amber glass, a hippopotamus for flint, and an alligator for green. "If kids learn about recycling, they encourage their parents to get involved," explains Bonnie Abrams, who handles marketing and accounting duties for both Delaware Valley and Otter. The firm also began to host tours, set up displays at fairs, and advertise in newspapers in hopes of building Otter's public business. In addition, it sponsored recycling essay contests for school children and encouraged scout troops and other organizations to pursue can-collection drives. On the commercial side, the firm targeted bars and restaurants as sources of cans and glass separated by color.

In those early days at Otter, workers with shovels would sort out contaminants from loads of glass, dumped on the floor. The clean, sorted glass--averaging 20 tons per week--was then sent through crushers and shipped to nearby consumers. Can processing--which averaged 34 tons per month--consisted of magnetic separation and densifying.

As the state moved closer to requiring source separation and curbside collection of recyclables, Otter purchased a "state-of-the-art" material separation system from Count Recycling Systems Inc. (Des Moines, Iowa), planning to find a niche in handling commingled material in order to expand its volume. Operating simply as a buyback facility was not enough, says Jack Snyder. "A buyback is really a one-man operation. That's the only way it can really succeed."

Along with peripherals, such as a front-end loader and several forklifts, the company put about $1 million into the equipment and a 5,000-square-foot building, says Jack Snyder. But to handle commingled household scrap from a small community, he says "you could do a lot with $50,000 to $60,000 for a few conveyors."

Taking advantage of a shortage in processing capacity in neighboring New Jersey, which had mandated recycling separation programs before Pennsylvania, Otter worked its way into the business and primed itself to handle the upcoming recycling requirements in its own state. Getting its foot in the door, however, had its price. "The first three years we lost a great deal of money just to be in the business, " says Jack Snyder.

In 1988, Pennsylvania passed Act 101, requiring municipalities to collect common household recyclables from single-family homes. Otter won a five-year contract to handle the glass, bimetal and aluminum cans, and newspaper collected in lower Bucks County.

Private haulers collect the commingled material and-separately-newspapers at curbside and transfer the bottles and cans to three storage areas at Otter, the largest of which measures 50 feet on a side and is bounded by 15-foot-high walls. The holding areas, which can store five days worth of deliveries, are paved with asphalt to limit contamination from stones and dirt.

Newspapers, which are delivered separately from the other materials, are deposited in a designated holding area--walled to avoid paper blowing around--adjacent to the baling operation where they're processed.

The separation system conveys the commingled material from the storage areas into the processing building, where bimetal cans are removed with a magnetic separator and plastic containers and aluminum cans are blown out with a stream of air, then separated and baled later. (Otter handles all of its baling with a high-volume, high-density Logemann 345 located in an adjacent building.)

Usable glass is then sorted by hand onto one of three conveyors for the individual colors, fed to crushing machines, and dropped into holding pits. At the same time, contaminants such as mirrors, plate glass, drinking glasses, ceramics, and light bulbs are plucked from the stream by hand and, later, disposed. Broken glass too small to be sorted and other small debris falls through the conveyors to a container, where it's accumulated and then given to an asphalt maker (Otter bears the shipping cost, but avoids paying local landfill fees of $60 to $65 per ton). Although Pennsylvania has not approved cutlet use in road surfaces, some of the MRF's glass ends up in parking lots and the roads of neighboring states. Larry Snyder reports that about 15 percent of the total commingled stream is broken, unsortable glass (sent to the asphalt maker); other waste makes up about 5 percent.

About 35 employees keep Otter humming. Besides the manager and one other office worker, there are a few machine operators and about a half-dozen supervisors. The rest are laborers and sorters, some of whom are disabled individuals the firm has sought to employ.

Otter usually sells cullet to about four glass-making facilities operated by two or three manufacturers and located 60 to 350 miles away. The glass mills require that the glass be crushed and may set a certain minimum and maximum size, but their biggest concern is that the cutlet must be only container glass and free of all contaminants. The MRF has been able to sell as much glass as it processes and used to ship at will, but recently its customers have required shipments to be scheduled in advance because of gluts, especially for green cullet. When shipping to nearby consumers, Otter uses one Delaware Valley truck dedicated for the purpose, but most long trips are handled by the buyer or private transporters.

The guaranteed volume provided by the county contract is the lifeblood of the MRF, but it also means material must be kept moving, says Larry Snyder. Otter doesn't have room for long-term storage, and, he says, "In today's economy we can't play craps with the material; we don't get paid until the material is shipped, and that may be 30 days after we have paid for it."

Larry Snyder speaks of two keys to success in the business: building long-term relationships with customers--"because you want to have a relationship in good market times and bad market times"--and handling quality material. Although the Bucks County contract puts the responsibility on the home owner and the hauler to ensure that only appropriate materials end up in Otter's commingled stream, "if we have a problem, we work it out together."

To win contracts to handle municipal material, points out Jack Snyder, you have to be a "qualified bidder. " For Delaware Valley, like many processors, the only new part of the game was separation; the firm had handled the materials before and knew the costs involved, how to market, and how to operate and maintain the equipment. "It's very easy for any scrap dealer to adjust to this business," he says.

When beginning to work with local officials, advises Jack Snyder, "go slowly and work your way in. Try at first to serve your community. Give them a deal that doesn't throttle them, but gives them a chance to get into recycling with you at the helm. "

As its commingled business has expanded, Otter's buyback role has diminished. It no longer takes glass or plastics over the scale-Abrams notes that the fin-n does not want to encourage theft of curbside recyclables-but remains open to the public, buying cans and giving tours.

At first, the glass and bimetal cans generated through the Bucks County contract covered Otter's processing costs, leaving the aluminum cans as clear profit, reports Jack Snyder. When the firm agreed to the county's request to add plastics to the mix, however, its productivity was cut by a third to a half because these voluminous materials take up a lot of room on the processing conveyors, slowing the flow and slowing profits.

The 100 tons of newspapers delivered daily under the county program is another "big minus factor," says Jack Snyder. The county subsidizes the baling of the paper, but doesn't help with the $25-per-ton fee Otter currently must pay to get it recycled.

Otter's cost to process the commingled material is about $60 per ton, estimates Jack Snyder. Glass prices are averaging only about $30 a ton and as much as 20 to 30 percent of the glass is lost to breakage. Abrams says, "I don't think we're losing money on glass--it at least breaks even. We try to make our money on the aluminum and other materials."

But with many markets oversupplied, it's taken longer than a patient Snyder family expected to recoup their investment in Otter, reports Jack Snyder. The basic problem: No new end uses have developed "so the markets are saturated and the prices have all come down. " He adds, "It's very difficult to operate a MRF without charging a tipping fee today.

"The glass industry has not changed significantly in the last 80 years. Glassmaking operations are very similar to what they were at the turn of the century," says Jack Snyder. "In order for us or the industry to grow, there must be radical changes in manufacturing." Before glass makers will invest heavily in recycling, however, "glass will again have to reemerge as a contender with plastic for container use," he says.

Despite slow-to-grow markets, Otter's managers are optimistic. "There will be a great future in this business, " predicts Abrams, who observes that the business has changed dramatically over the past eight years. Society will change to emphasize recycling of household discards and government will develop incentives to help the markets along, she says.

Scrap processors are in the right position to take advantage of these changes, says Jack Snyder. "There is no question in my mind that it's the thing to do. Others see the opportunities: Look at the big waste haulers. They are dying to get into recycling and we are already there with the expertise." •

Here’s how one family scrap firm has positioned itself to ride what it feels is the next wave in the recycling industry.