Scrapbook—: Recycling Recollections

January/February 2003

By Si Wakesberg

In my decades-long career as a recycling journalist and employee of various scrap trade associations (including ISRI), I have amassed truckloads of industry memories. Here are a few from my vault:
   Educating a Broadway Columnist: Picking up a copy of New York’s Daily News years ago, I read “On the Town,” a column written by Charles McHarry that was usually filled with Broadway chitchat.
   That day, however, the columnist chose to poke fun at the scrap industry, which was then adopting the more-dignified name of “recycling.”
   I promptly dispatched a letter to Mr. McHarry, telling him a little about the scrap industry. While I didn’t exactly attack him, you could say I kind of poked him in the eye with facts and figures. Lo and behold, my letter appeared in bold face in his next (humbled) column in which he admitted he’d learned about the scrap industry for the first time. This unexpected exposure in the Daily News (circulation 2 million at the time) gave me a few minutes of fame among readers while also conveying to them some knowledge about our invaluable industry.
   The Over-Anxious Scrap Dealer: Henry Lipkowitz, who ran a scrap company in Cleveland and who was active in industry trade associations, was a worrier. When I visited him one time, he invited me to lunch. “Before we leave, though,” he said, “I just have to give my people some instructions.” I waited, then we got into his car for the 10-minute drive to the restaurant. Halfway there, he stopped the car near a telephone. “Excuse me,” he apologized, “I have to call the office.” That done, we proceeded, and some five minutes later we were seated at a table in a busy restaurant.
   “I’ll be right back,” Henry said, excusing himself from the table. “I just have to tell the manager something”—and off he went. The rest of the meal went smoothly, and we passed the time discussing the copper scrap market. We were having coffee when Henry once again excused himself. “Got to see what’s doing at the office.” I waited
patiently.
   While thinking about Henry recently, it struck me how unfortunate it was that he passed on before the cell phone was invented. It would have been perfect for him.
   Unhappy Endings: Sadly, I contemplate the demise of several metal companies that once were powerful and seemingly invincible but that, like the dinosaurs, fell victim to the onslaught of modern times.
   Take R. Lavin & Sons Inc. (Chicago), which was one of the most respected copper smelters and brass and bronze ingotmakers. Lavin attracted sellers of copper and brass scrap like a magnet. At any trade association meeting, the company’s executives would be surrounded by scrap dealers wanting to do business with the top-rated 
consumer.
   But as the brass and bronze ingot industry lagged, as OSHA and environmental regulators looked deeper into the operations of scrap and primary copper plants, Lavin—like many others—became a victim of the age. Recent reports indicated that its site might be sold by the city “for as little as $1.” No one—not even Hal Lennon, the Lavin executive whose knowledge of copper and brass was inexhaustible—could have foreseen such an unhappy end for this company.
   Then there’s Asarco Inc. (New York City), which I once regarded as the most powerful copper producer. Asarco and its well-known Federated Metals Division loomed like bright stars in the metal firmament. (It was said that more scrap executives got their start at Federated than at any other company.)
   Founded in 1899, Asarco grew to become a major copper producer, ranked with Phelps Dodge Corp., American Metal Co., Magma Copper Co., and others. But environmental laws created a mountain of costs too steep for Asarco to surmount. In 1999, the firm was acquired by Grupo Mexico S.A. de C.V.
   Recently, battered and bruised, Asarco tried to sell 54 percent of its interest in Southern Peru Copper Corp., only to be rebuffed by the U.S. Justice Department. Meanwhile, the government is seeking millions of dollars in cleanup costs from the company, which also recently submitted a proposal to the Justice Department for environmental remedy at its closed plants. It’s to the point where some analysts wonder if Asarco won’t soon disappear altogether. What would my friend Simon Strauss, who battled Asarco’s causes so eloquently in Washington, have said if he had lived to see these events?
A Pioneer Aluminum Broker: When I met Stanley Miller, he was working out of the New York office of Alloys & Chemicals Corp. Soon thereafter, he left that famous company to become what may have been one of the first aluminum brokers in the business.
   When I was writing about scrap early in my career, there were a couple of copper brokers but no aluminum brokers that I can recall. Stanley was among those who really set the pace for the dozens, then hundreds of brokers who traced his footsteps. All of a sudden, it seemed, scores of brokers were trying to get a piece of the expanding aluminum pie.
   Stanley got his start working for Sidney Danziger, who ran Alloys & Chemicals with Noah Butkin. Though the company was based in Cleveland, Sidney worked long distance from his New York office. Similarly, during Stanley Miller’s tenure at Alloys & Chemicals, he chose to work from New York. Later, when Stanley established his own aluminum brokerage business, he traveled a great deal in the South, yet he remained a real New Yorker.
   Over the years, I got to know Stanley quite well. He was knowledgeable about aluminum, a sharp trader, a friendly chap, and—above all—a real gourmet. If you went to the best restaurants in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and other cities, there was a good chance you’d find Stanley there. In New York, he had a nodding acquaintance with some of the most imposing maître d’s in the business. I have fond memories of Stanley at his favorite table at the Four Seasons in Manhattan, near the pool, of course, intimate with the headwaiters, a patron well-known to the owners. Also, it wasn’t out of the question to run into Stanley and his wife, Vera, in a top restaurant in Monaco or Paris (as actually happened to me one time).
   Stanley moved to Florida years ago and still officially resides there, but rumor has it that he maintains an apartment in New York. Though he isn’t as active as he was years ago, the last time I saw him he still had a youthful look and a personality filled with energy. Those of us who worked with him in trade associations haven’t forgotten the important part he played in developing aluminum scrap specifications and general rules for the industry. 
   There are some people who don’t get plaques but who have in their own way contributed to the growth of an industry. Stanley Miller is certainly one of the unsung framers and shapers of the modern aluminum scrap industry. 

—Si Wakesberg, New York bureau chief for Scrap

In my decades-long career as a recycling journalist and employee of various scrap trade associations (including ISRI), I have amassed truckloads of industry memories.