Business Spotlight: Salvage business promotes responsible consumption

One man's trash is another man's treasure, so says an old idiom.

That's not necessarily true for Gary Goodrich, owner of Greener World Recycling in east Carson City.

Trash is trash.

But there is value to be found in salvageable materials, which can be recycled and then reused.

Goodrich pays the market price for some materials, particularly metals, which are then resold by the ton to companies that can turn recycled products into reusable material again.

"Everything I get, that I'm willing to accept, I resell," he said. "Some of it needs separation, and some of it I can refine and up the value when I resell it."

Tin steel, aluminum, heavy steel and copper wiring are among the materials he looks for specifically to bundle by the ton and resell to larger recycling companies in the area.

"Almost everything I sell goes to companies in Reno and Sparks," Goodrich said. "Tin is the garbage metal of the system, because you get bits and pieces of copper and brass thrown in with it along with all sorts of other materials that are there."

He also accepts lead acid batteries, such as vehicle batteries, because of the lead content in them that can be recycled and reused.

"I sell lead batteries to Interstate Batteries," he said. "That's the whole battery. There's no smelting or refining done here."

Some of the material he gets can be broken down, Goodrich said. Wires can be stripped of their sheaths using a wire stripper, while other products require separation by hand.

"One of the big things that we do here is the separation of materials," he said.

Separation is the process of literally taking things apart in order to distinguish between materials that can be resold from those that cannot.

This can be tedious work, Goodrich admits.

"We have to identify the materials," he said. "A lot of people who bring me stuff don't know what they have to begin with."

Other products, he said, are left whole and not separated because the time and effort required are more than the item is worth.

Water heaters are one of those, Goodrich said.

"We take the whole thing and throw it in as tin steel," he said. "The motors in those things are aluminum wound motors. Core steel has some value, the aluminum has some value. But it is a major pain to try and separate those."

He said the companies he sells to don't mind some products being sold whole, either.

"They get enough stuff mixed in with all of that that they are busy with the tin stuff," Goodrich said. "There is some trash that comes off of that, and most of that is things I can't resell."

What he isn't able to resell is discarded and becomes garbage.

Plastic is one of those materials Goodrich said he does not deal in primarily because the mass required to sell by the ton is far greater than its weight.

"Reselling plastic is a recycling adventure in and of itself," he said. "Scrap in plastic is a totally different animal than steel, aluminum and all the other metals."

To effectively resell plastic, Goodrich says, he would need a way to reduce its bulk and increase density.

"Typical plastic drink bottles have got to be condensed down into as tightly packed bales as you can get them, because you can't afford to be hauling mostly air around," he said. "I don't have a baler."

Goodrich said his operation is limited to compacting materials by hand, and that is just not feasible with plastic.

At times, reselling any material can be challenging, he said, because of the volatility of the market. There can be significant fluctuations between high and low market values that change the game plans -- and the fortunes -- of recyclers.

"It's a gamble," Goodrich said. "When the bottom fell out of the market a while back, a lot of recyclers went out of business."

He cited the price of tin steel plummeting from $150 a ton to $50 in just two months shortly after he bought Greener World, located at 3150 Deer Run Road in east Carson City.

And that market is still struggling to recover, Goodrich said.

"It's been collapsing," he said. "A lot of people speculated, anticipating that tin was going to come back. They started buying steel like it was going out style. They held their prices artificially high, filling their yards up with steel, and the prices didn't come back."

Right now, he said, there is an overproduction of steel material, which is flooding the market with supply namely from China.

"China has been playing games with dumping their steel," he said. "The world is producing about 500 million metric tons of steel a year while China is producing a little more than 650 million metric tons of steel."

Goodrich said China appears to be doing the same with aluminum, too.

"I wouldn't be surprised if they are doing the exact same thing with some of the other materials, too," he said.

But Goodrich said it is only a matter of time when things will turn around because of free market forces.

"The free market exists, and the market eventually has to come back," he said. "It will force a correction one way or another. In the long run, what I'm hoping to do is get this business back up and running proper and get it making decent money."

Once that happens, Goodrich said businesses like his should enjoy some robust years ahead.

"When the market comes back, it will probably come back strong enough and long enough to provide somebody with a number of years of good business before things go south again," he said.

While he waits, Goodrich uses some of his spare time to work on a hobby racer that he has parked in the warehouse facility where he does his recycling business.

Goodrich, a former mechanical engineer, has a knack for tinkering with parts. He has been assembling his project vehicle piece by piece in preparation for a kinetic sculpture race next spring.

The competition, known as the Arcada to Ferndale Race held in Eureka, California, occurs annually over the three-day Memorial Day weekend, Goodrich said, attracting thousands to the small coastal communities just below Redwood National and State Park along U.S. Highway 101.

"It's probably the wildest combination of blood and guts competition, and tongue and cheek fun you've ever seen in your life," Goodrich said. "It's the grand-daddy race of them all."

Goodrich said he's attended about a dozen races in the event's 50-year history, either as an observer or pit crew member. Next year will be his first race as a competitor.

Some of the parts to his kinetic racer are reclaimed, he said, including the huge rear racing tires and the rims. He also plans to add some bicycle parts to the vehicle, which, as a kinetic racer, means it is human powered.

Pending an application, Goodrich said he wants to enter his project vehicle into next month's Nevada Day Parade as a way of trying to create enthusiasm for the hobby and the sport in hopes of possibly bringing a kinetic sculpture race to Carson City.

"I am hoping to get some kinetic sculpture racers going for that," said Goodrich, noting the popularity of human-powered vehicles at Burning Man on the playa of the Black Rock Desert. "I'd love to see someone start a race in this area."

Greener World Recycling Center is open 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday. The business accepts drop-offs and can make arrangements to pick up recycled material.

Call 775-883-1884 for more information on the materials accepted, or visit Greener World on Facebook here.