May/June 1989
Henry Schweich believes in telling the recycling story. And he thinks the time is ripe to tell it.
By Susan Crissinger
Susan Crissinger is associate editor of Scrap Processing and Recycling.
He saw it coming. He began to be concerned before the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986 was passed, the law that expanded enormously the scope and funding of Superfund activities. He had a sinking feeling that it and similar legislation could hit his industry hard. Henry L. Schweich decided it was time to tell the recycling story.
"If you see something and you think it's wrong, you've got to say so," says the president of Cerro Copper Products Co., Sauget, Illinois. That's why he began a strong effort to publicize the environmental benefits of recycling and started speaking at public hearings on environmental legislation.
In his public relations efforts, Schweich, who is a director on the board of the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI), has had several pieces published locally on what Cerro and recycling are all about, with mixed success. In August 1987, an article appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that covered the company's history, operations, and expansion plans. But even though Schweich repeatedly told the reporter about recycling's contribution to the environment, it never became a feature of the story. Another piece, in the St. Louis Business Journal in April of last year, also discussed the firm's plans to expand but barely touched on recycling.
Schweich continued his efforts. He hired a public relations professional, one of whose assignments was to contact the St. Louis Regional Commerce & Growth Association and get the recycling message across.
In November 1988, a one-page article appeared in the association's publication, St. Louis Commerce: "A Goldmine for Industry and the Environment." It explained that Cerro used 100-percent scrap copper as raw material for tube manufacture and quoted statistics on the raw materials saved through recycling. It discussed Cerro's energy-efficient operations. It praised recyclers for promoting a cleaner, healthier environment. It said Schweich "feels that the company’s contribution as a recycler of discarded copper metal is as important as the company I s product because of the tremendously positive impact that recycling makes on our environment and our economy."
After three years of work, Schweich had said what he'd wanted to say. But why was he so driven? "You begin to realize that your economic viability is at stake, and the future of the industry is at stake," he explains. "There is a fair amount of witchcraft in the environmental area, in that a lot of people do not know how clean is clean." The story the public hears determines how it responds, he says. And that includes responses at public forums on environmental matters. "How you are viewed by the public and your neighbors becomes not only a matter of correct morality and public relations, it can evolve into an economic issue."
Schweich believes "politics got ahead of American industry" in the environmental arena--some environmental groups have cast industry as the "bad guy," the polluter--and now industry must respond to this. While it's hard not to take on a defensive posture, Schweich thinks recyclers can and should occupy higher ground. "In the case of recycling, the contribution made is so overwhelmingly positive ... that we shouldn't be defensive," he says. "Deep down in the hearts of every scrap owner and operator or consumer, we know we're not 'bad guys.'''
That's the key to getting the message out. "You can't tell or sell anything unless you believe it yourself first," Schweich states. "If you don't believe that you really contribute to the general welfare and improvement of your region, you're not going to be able to do it."
How to Get Your Message Out
Okay, so you know you're a good guy. Now what? You start to address the other obstacles to telling the recycling story.
Plain old inertia is one obstacle, Schweich says. Because many managers are trained to look to the bottom line in a narrow sense, they often neglect the importance of promoting recycling's benefit to the public.
Another obstacle can be lack of contacts. Publication of the St. Louis Commerce article was the direct result of contacts made by Schweich and his public relations consultant. Recycling "is a relationship business primarily," Schweich says, "but most [firms] don't have a relationship with a local newspaper, with a local radio station. … Who you know in this area is as important as who you know in buying and selling."
Schweich is especially emphatic about establishing positive relationships with the media. And recycling companies should get started now, he says, or they may be sorry later. He emphasizes the need to approach the media with the good news about recycling, rather than wait for reporters to knock on the plant door looking for something out of order in operations.
Although hiring a public relations professional isn't a necessity, it has enhanced Schweich's efforts to tell the recycling story. "The members of the recycling industry in general are significantly above average in intelligence, business acumen, and articulation," he says. But if you would like to tell your story more broadly, or if you don't have the contacts, or if it's not in your area of management expertise, Schweich says it's a good idea to consider hiring a professional. He considers his "a common sense person, a good person to review my thinking," and "a contributor of his own expertise."
His decision to use a professional was part of his plan to begin directing presentation of Cerro's and recycling's contributions to society. To ease trepidations about entering this new area, he insists "you can manage it like any other area of business. … It's just another management area, one that is especially important to the success and the viability of your business."
Getting serious about public relations has proved worthwhile for Cerro. After the firm sent copies of the successful Goldmine article to more than 400 of its suppliers, along with a letter thanking them for their business, the buying department received more than 60 phone calls saying what a great idea the piece was. New scrap suppliers were obtained, and some older ones "reactivated." In addition, Cerro sent copies to more than 3,000 tube customers, also with a positive response.
Since then, a similar piece on Cerro and recycling appeared in a local newspaper, the Cahokia-Dupo Journal. Though Schweich says it's a very small market, he believes it's economically desirable to have a positive image in the community.
The aim-high executive says he'd like to see the industry's public relations efforts concentrate on more national publications, or possibly create a display for the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., or perhaps take an exhibit on recycling on the road. "The message should be told by us to everybody," he says. "Every scrap processor should tell it, every consumer should tell it-to his local people, to as broad an audience as he can get, to legislators, his representatives, his senator, to the EPA, statewide, and beyond."
Schweich is convinced: "We have a great story to sell. You have to believe it, number one, and you have to be active enough and aggressive enough to tell it every single chance you get." •
Henry Schweich believes in telling the recycling story. And he thinks the time is ripe to tell it.