At All American Recycling, top service standards in scrap metal and waste recycling are guaranteed, which explains this company’s impressive list of longstanding clients in a robust market. While many American businesses in demolition, construction, manufacturing, and associated industries struggle to establish long-term relationships with reputable recycling partners, this team of nearly 100 plays a significant role in its partners’ businesses, local economies, and protecting the planet—all at competitive rates.
From iron-based metals like automotive castings and structural steel to non-iron-based metals like aluminum siding, copper wiring, and stainless steel, All American Recycling leads with integrity, transparency, and a personal touch. The company has staff on standby to advise customers on their next step, whether that is confirming whether it accepts a specific type of metal or taking care of household appliances that have reached the end of their life cycle.
All American Recycling’s range of services includes providing equipment like roll off boxes, open top gondolas, luggers, pallet boxes, can trailers, hoppers, and more for scrap removal. The company also offers live loading, material pick-ups and drop-offs, and scrapping of rail cars. In addition, it handles tear-down on demolition jobs as well as onsite demolition processing on projects of any size. At the end of the day, the priority is preventing as much waste as possible from entering landfill.
With four convenient locations in the Chicagoland area, the company is equipped with everything a customer could need, right down to an extensive trucking fleet. As such, All American Recycling is known for keeping its project schedules tightly controlled, giving its customers and its drivers peace of mind in knowing that no time is ever wasted. It also means that the company is entirely self-sufficient, giving it full leverage in optimally scheduling its customers’ collections.
Convenience is one of the company’s main aims, and as such, it serves the southern end of Chicago from its Ford Heights facility while the Western suburbs of Chicago and Fox Valley are served from its Aurora facility. Two other footprints include its business-to-business (B2B) outfit in Chicago, and the Joliet team that takes care of the southwest Chicago townships of New Lenox, Tinley Park, and Lockport. By ensuring that the business owners and households of these areas have an expert voice to assist them in correctly disposing of metals, the company is doing much more than just its day job. It provides an essential service that helps these communities regulate their waste in ways that are good for the planet and local businesses.
“It’s about bringing value to items that most people discard, plus eliminating the need to go to landfill or waste facilities,” says Tom Bochenek, Operations Manager, of the team’s approach to the environmentally sustainable reuse of waste products. By turning what would otherwise be considered building rubble into new buildings and dwellings, or using it for entirely different purposes, this company is being the change it wants to see in the world.
Opening its doors in 2011 with a team of five and one facility, growth reflects All American Recycling’s commitment to continuous evolution. By ensuring that its values align with those of its customers, the company builds healthy business exchanges with partners who value its genuine can-do approach. Its affiliation with some of the country’s top recycling associations—the Recycled Materials Association (ReMA), the National Demolition Association, and others—reflects that commitment as well.
Indeed, the company goes all out to guide its customers, particularly on how they can add value to their metal waste. Prioritizing clear communication and premium customer care means that customers are always kept in the loop. In the process, All American Recycling is changing attitudes by changing how others see and treat valuable resources that would otherwise be pushed back into the endless pollution loop.
The company’s logistics division is also pivotal to its success. Once customers are fully informed of the transportation options and costs, as well as what the future holds for their waste materials, metals are removed, processed into smaller chunks and chips, and delivered to steel mills where the materials are reduced into smaller, reusable volumes. No matter the original size of a load, this team can shift waste to facilities where materials are recycled without any hassle to customers.
Staying ahead of the competition also means staying up to date with technology. As such, All American Recycling recently invested in a sought-after new metal processing machine, the MTB Cable Box. “For non-ferrous metals like copper, we have a state-of-the-art wire chopper at our Joliet facility. There are probably only a handful of these machines in all of North America,” says Patrick Lamorte, Operations Manager. The new machine significantly improves the company’s wire reduction capabilities, allowing it to get larger quantities of copper to the mills faster, more efficiently, and at a better price.
All American Recycling also installed a stationary electric shear cutter that gives it another competitive edge in improving output volumes, price, and efficiency. As the machine runs on electricity rather than fossil fuels, it is also more environmentally friendly than outdated models. “We have big facilities with heavy processing equipment that allows you to bring in the volumes that you need to,” says Bochenek.
Another similar machine compresses metals. By keeping up with the latest available technology, All American Recycling facilities handle niche metals like rebar and other hard-to-process metals better than many other, more traditional, outfits. It also processes such tough materials faster and more cost-effectively than firms that take the long route. Here, growth is as much about improving systems as it is about expansion, which means stretching itself and its capabilities.
On occasion, the team engages in demolition projects of its own. One such recent project was on a complex demolition site at a manufacturing facility set in an urban area in Frankfort, Illinois. Working in an area surrounded by homes was a challenge the team overcame through prudent risk management and vigilance. The outcome was successful, and today the project stands out as an accomplishment that reflects All American Recycling’s skill, organizational capabilities, and attention to detail.
The company takes equally good care of its people, and its roster of long-tenured staff is proof of that. With a tradition of promoting in-house, this team knows when they join that hard work with a goal in mind gets them where they want to go. And, because those in management largely started from the bottom, they are in touch with people’s experience in the field.
At All American Recycling, mutual respect trumps outdated hierarchies. Management prides themselves on their open-door policy because they know how hard their team works; that is just one small way in which they can say thank you in return. “We have more of a family here than employees,” says Bochenek. “What I like most about our employees is that they use the tools we provide them with to succeed. They build themselves.”
As with so many industries, the future of metal recycling resides in the evolution of technology. As processing and melting capabilities improve, testing and training also improve at All American Recycling. With growing transparency and knowledge sharing between scrap metal yards and their milling partners, customers stand to benefit tremendously in terms of efficiency.
By pushing toward a cleaner and safer future for the recycling industry, engineers continuously develop new ways of doing that better and faster. Therefore, with the timelines of possibility becoming increasingly reduced, new and previously unfathomable options are fast becoming the norm in this line of business, which is good news for those who work in the industry but also for companies in need of a fast-evolving recycling specialist that delivers a premium service.
As Chicagoland’s most rapidly expanding recycling firm, offering competitive prices, All American Recycling is on its way up in the best sense possible.
