Gurus of Green

Environmental consultants, once considered the enemy, are now scrap operators’ essential partners in regulatory compliance and environmental cleanup.

By Kim Fernandez

Toward the end of the workday, Michael James lets out a deep breath. Just back from working with a client in Chicago, he’s spent the last two hours on the phone in his Houston office, trying to figure out how to handle a situation in Delaware. He’s also negotiating with the U.S. EPA for a client in New Mexico, and he’ll end his week with a flight to Florida to meet with a scrap processor there. 
   Welcome to the life of an environmental consultant who specializes in the scrap industry.
   James, president of James Environmental Management Inc. (Round Rock, Texas), has spent the last 13 years working with more than 800 scrap recyclers, auto dismantlers, and other industrial customers, helping their yards achieve and stay in compliance with national, state, and local regulations on environmental issues—from stormwater management to air pollution and everything in between.
   Like many consultants, James started out working in environmental compliance for another industry—his career includes stints with Texas Instruments (Dallas) and General Electric (Fairfield, Conn.). Shortly after he launched his own company, though, one of his clients bought a shredder and needed some compliance help. James dove in, learning about shredders and other recycling compliance issues, and the clients started coming.
   Michael Place, president of Continental Placer Inc./CPI Environmental Services Inc. (Wheaton, Ill.), tells a similar story. Though he now counts more than 200 scrap recyclers as his clients, his staff started out in specialties including geology, biology, and engineering. Once the scrap industry started calling, however, the work seemed virtually endless.
   It’s no wonder. Scrap recyclers are bound by myriad environmental rules, restrictions, and codes that govern almost everything they do and how they do it. Regulations trickle down from the U.S. government to state and local legislators and regulators, and they seem to change almost constantly. For most scrap operations, staying on top of every new or revised law—not to mention knowing what processes or technologies will get you in compliance—is nearly impossible. 
   “I really need someone who knows how to dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s,” says Frank Cozzi, president of Cozzi Enterprises Inc. (Burr Ridge, Ill.) and chair of ISRI. “A big part of the industry today is making sure you do all of that with respect to environmental issues.” 
That’s why environmental consultants are more popular than ever. 

Shifting From Reactive to Proactive
Consultants like James and Place take on tasks that range from checking out land scrap companies want to acquire to leading yard owners through Superfund site cleanups. They draft plans for keeping a yard in environmental compliance—from day one or after resolving a problem—and they work with regulators and the EPA on various issues.
   Over time, the work has changed tremendously, says Larry Berndt, principal of Wenck Associates Inc. (St. Paul, Minn.). “We still assist scrapyards with investigations and cleanup issues,” he notes, but in the 23 years he’s been in the business, “we’ve gone full circle from being reactive and trying to deal with problems that are found to preventing those problems in the first place.”
   James agrees. Some scrap processors only learn the value of prevention after the fact, however. His recent trip to New Mexico was to help a client get out of a problem that had him facing both criminal charges and six-figure fines. “When I went back to look at all the advice we’d given him over the last five years, I found that had he followed it, the EPA would not have questioned a single thing he did,” he says. “Now, he’s spending a lot of money fast to get out of trouble quick.” 
   Proactive measures are no guarantee, Berndt notes. “It’s hard to run any business, especially a scrapyard, that isn’t going to have some problems. But if you have plans in place to deal with them, minor problems don’t have to mean disaster.”
As the environmental consultant’s role has evolved from problem solver to problem preventer, it’s becoming more common for scrapyards to keep a firm on retainer as a proactive, specialized member of the team. “We strive to add a lot of value,” Place says, “and we prefer to work with clients for the long term. We become their trusted advisers.” For example, he says, “We helped one large company develop its policies and procedures. Now we do an annual audit of its facilities to compare those policies to environmental regulations, see if it’s in compliance, score facilities, and track changes.”
   Scrap company owners tend to balk at the paperwork and inspections that compliance requires, consultants say, viewing them as tedious, expensive, and generally cumbersome. As a result, many consultants either take care of such hassles directly or work with local agencies to get them done so the owner doesn’t have to deal with them.
   Many scrap processors pay an annual or hourly fee to have consultants on call to answer questions or resolve problems, while some larger companies actually have outsourced their entire environmental management operations. 
   Environmental regulations are so many and varied—and they change so frequently—that it can be difficult for scrap managers to keep up. As Berndt explains, “To put scrap experts in the position that they’re expected to know all of the environmental regulations and run a scrapyard would be like asking a car salesman to sell a space shuttle.”
   Even large companies that have in-house environmental experts retain consultants for specialty areas, Berndt says. “The great thing [about consultants] is you can turn them on and turn them off and plug them in where you need them. I’ve got more than 100 people behind me for technical support to help with various expertise issues. If I don’t know the answer to something, I can go to them and find out.”

Changing Perceptions
Scrap professionals didn’t always value environmental consultants’ knowledge—and that’s another change in this niche. Consultants note that two decades ago, they weren’t exactly welcomed with open arms. They were subjected to everything from evil stares to outright resistance. As Berndt says, “When the environmental people used to show up, [the staff would] all look up and say, ‘Cripes, who died?’ That is changing.”
   In the last 20 years, the consultants say, company owners have come to understand that environmental issues are important and aren’t going away. In the long run, compliance is simpler and cheaper than risking noncompliance. 
   Some attribute this change in attitude to a generational shift in management at scrap companies. “This is a unique industry,” Berndt says. “It’s passed down from generation to generation. The way things were done 80 or 100 years ago is not the way you can do them today. We are in a transition period where parents and grandparents—who may be elderly—are still involved. It’s difficult for them to understand these changes, but for the most part, they understand why they have to comply.”
   At the same time, he says, “The new generation of operators taking over the family business now understands the magnitude of complying with environmental regulations. They’re just not sure how to get there.” 
   Despite this change in perception, consultants still face the occasional brick wall—especially when they’re telling scrap processors something they don’t want to hear.
   “The biggest misconception out there is that the consultant invented all of these rules and requirements just so they could have a job,” James says. “That’s not true. It’s like saying the accountant invented the IRS just so he could have a job. There’s no foundation for that at all.”
   Other consultants say they’ve faced the same issue, and they attribute it to the expense their recommendations can mean for a company.
   “A lot of advice and information consultants say you need to consider might seem to be worthless, but the consultants don’t write the laws,” Berndt says. “They’re just the messengers.”
   What scrapyard owners don’t always realize, James says, is “it’s not my job to put somebody out of business. It is my job to help them make more money.” 
   That said, “it’s not as bad as it was a dozen years ago,” Place says. “You’d tell [people] you were an environmental consultant, and they’d start backing up. We went through some difficult periods and handed out a lot of invoices because of U.S. EPA Superfund sites.”
   Luckily, “that kind of misconception is slowly but surely going away,” James says. “We’re recognized as a viable part of the team.”

Two-Way Communication
Consultants have the sometimes unenviable task of carrying the regulatory message into the scrap operation, but they’re also bringing the scrap recycling message back to the government as regulatory advisers. James says he’s spent a good amount of time working with ISRI, other advocacy groups, and government agencies to bring a real-world perspective to the legislative and regulatory process. Because many regulators and legislators have no direct experience in the scrap recycling industry, he says, they can draft rules and laws that make little sense to scrap recyclers and can end up creating huge expense or paperwork burdens without meeting the intended goals.
   “We get involved from a regulatory advocacy standpoint on behalf of our customers with different state and federal agencies,” James says. “In some cases, that’s the EPA. In some cases, it’s a state department of environmental protection.”
   Berndt says he’s done similar work, and for good reason. “[People] take it for granted that when their car or some sort of metal object is no longer needed, they just throw it away,” he says. “This material ends up in scrapyards and is recycled. Everybody is fond of the ‘green’ recycle word, but most people don’t understand what goes into [recycling], including many regulators.”
   Regulators, Berndt points out, come to a site to enforce regulations or check a site’s operations. Many have never been to a scrapyard before, and their first impression can be that the scrap facility is a disaster area. “One of the most important jobs I can do,” he says, “is to educate the regulators as to the importance and benefits of the scrap industry and how it functions.”

Finding a Consultant
With so many people and companies going into environmental consulting, selecting the right consultant to work with your scrap operation might seem overwhelming. Fortunately, there are questions to ask and points to consider that can help narrow down the options. From there, it’s all about your comfort level and a gut feeling that a specific person or company is a good match for your business.
   Cozzi, who has worked with consultants throughout his more than 30 years in the recycling industry, says the most important question to ask is whether someone has specific experience in the scrap recycling industry. “You want somebody who’s experienced in what you do,” he says. Or as James puts it, “When somebody asks me what a shredder is, I don’t have to look at a book.”
   Second, Cozzi says, “you also want people who have an understanding of how things work in the community or the state that you operate in. You don’t want to bring someone in who has no familiarity with the laws where you are.” That can result in the consultant spending lots of time doing basic homework, resulting in unnecessary expense.
   The consultants agree, and they say their work is easier when they find a client whose business matches their specific expertise. “The more I understand about the scrap business, the better I can help my client with the job at the least cost,” James says. “Consultants should be able to demonstrate a track record of making that happen.”
   To that end, ask not only if consultants have experience in the scrap recycling business, but also if they have experience with the specific commodities you process. Someone who’s well-versed in paper recycling issues, for example, might not have the knowledge to pinpoint metal issues, and vice versa.
   Further, “if a consultant has experience doing something in-house—not under the scrutiny of an agency, but just doing something at a yard—you want to know that,” Place says. “If somehow an agency’s going to be involved, you also want to check to see that the consultant has experience dealing with that agency.”
   One important consideration that’s easily overlooked is how well and easily you and the consultant communicate. In Cozzi’s experience, some experts have used such scientific or technical language that he had a difficult time understanding why they made specific recommendations, which could have had costly results. “I’ve worked with consultants who’d engineer you into the poorhouse to accomplish things that were pretty simple,” he says. “I need someone who can talk in plain English and help me understand what needs to be done.”
   In the end, both consultants and scrap processors say finding a consultant who’s comfortable with the scrap team, and one the team likes as well, is vital to making the relationship work. “If I’m on somebody’s team, then [the team feels] comfortable having me in the room when something needs to be discussed,” James says. “That makes my job easier.” 

The Green Guys
Stressing about stormwater? Aggravated by air quality? Concerned about compliance? The following companies offer guidance to the scrap recycling industry on those and other environmental issues.

AARC Environmental Inc., 866/276-2272, www.aarcenv.com
WZ Baumgartner & Associates Inc., 615/595-0025
Continental Placer Inc./CPI Environmental Services Inc., 630/407-0800, www.continentalplacer.com
Envirosure Solutions LLC, 480/784-4621, www.envirosure.com
First Environment Inc., 973/334-0003, www.firstenvironment.com
James Environmental Management Inc., 512/244-3631, www.jamesenvironmental.com
Quest Consulting Inc., 713/667-6326, www.questehs.com
Wenck Associates Inc., 651/228-1909, www.wenck.com

Kim Fernandez is a writer based in Bethesda, Md.