Panel: Scrap yards must be good neighbors

You don’t want to own a recycling yard that you’re not proud to put your name on.

The chief executive of SA Recycling, George Adams, quoted his brother, Terry, to emphasize the importance of keeping yard operations clean and compliant. Adams said he has often seen scrapyards where you can see lines of mud trailing from the entrance and into public streets.

“That’s a yard that’s asking to go out of business,” Adams said, adding that SA Recycling invests money in paving its yards. Adams spoke on a panel at the Recycled Materials Association’s Roundtable in Chicago on Monday. He was joined by Frank Cozzi, CEO of Cozzi Recycling and John Sacco, CEO of Sierra International Machinery.

“When you’re buying a large yard, it’s not like you are going to concrete it overnight, but we try to do a little bit every quarter so that in a couple years, it will be all concrete. We need to be good neighbors. Our yards should look nice. They should be well screened.”

He urged companies in the industry to be part of their communities and take steps like getting involved in charitable organizations and chambers of commerce.

“You know in the past there were TV shows like Sandford and Son that had a stereotype of a junkyard. With as many great operators we have, we also have bad operators too, and those operators give us a bad name.”

Cozzi noted that trucks and machines move better on hard surfaces.

“It’s safer for the people and it cuts down on emissions,” the head of Bellwood, Illinois-based Cozzi Recycling said.

Sacco said maintaining clean operations also keeps regulators happy.

“You can’t be putting oils and solvents and stuff in the soil that’s going to make the EPA come in,” Sacco said.