Waste Management Review speaks with Northeast Metal Traders’ Jeff Fisher about his long-standing relationship with Eldan Recycling and the critical role of robust machinery.
Eldan Recycling’s roots date back to 1956, with the company producing various scrap shears for Denmark’s burgeoning scrap metal market. Since then, Eldan’s portfolio has grown, now manufacturing a wide range of recycling systems and equipment.
While its capabilities are expansive, Eldan has a particular interest in cable recycling. Given copper and aluminium are 100 per cent recyclable without a loss of quality, the cable recycling sector is noncyclical – consistently producing sound economic and environmental outcomes.
Throughout its 64-year history, Eldan has supplied equipment to some of the world’s largest recycling companies, successfully installing more than 830 complete systems and 7100 single machines.
While Eldan has forged long-term collaborative partnerships with recovery companies’ world-over, one of its most significant relationships is with Northeast Metal Traders – a family-owned nonferrous scrap processing firm based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Focused on the United States’ Northeast, the company primarily acts as a wholesaler, buying from dealers that don’t have the volumes or cash flow to accumulate full truckloads of any given commodity.
Northeast Metal Traders consolidate material and guarantee quality, before shipping full trucks loads of processed copper brass, aluminium and steel to its customers.
The relationship between the two companies began when Northeast Metal Traders’ Jeff Fisher purchased an Eldan granulation line in 2013.
Fisher has been in the chopping business for over 40 years.
Following in his father’s footsteps, Fisher started working at 14, with his hand-on experience spanning multiple roles as a metal trader at some of the largest wire processors in the United States.
Fisher, who is based in Georgia, spoke with Waste Management Review while on a business trip to Northeast Metal Traders’ Philadelphia base in late December last year.
“I’ve been in this business for a long time. And I’ve run a lot of different pieces of equipment,” he says.
“Everyone uses different equipment, and while Eldan was not all that well know at the time, I really gravitated to them because of the robustness of their machines. I’ve seen so many horrible things happen to a machine, so that robustness and the ability of Eldan machines to be repaired without major issues is a big deal.”
Fisher explains that Northeast Metal Traders decided to purchase Eldan’s granulation line because they were selling 20 truckloads of material to another processor every month.
“That’s enough to start your own line. Now we run 1500 tonnes in a month,” he says.
“I was lucky that the owners of the company, the Grellers and the Goldbergs, gave me a lot of leeway to look around at our options and research the market.”
Eldan and Northeast Metal Traders worked together to install a system configured to the company’s existing facility in Philadelphia. The cornerstone of the system, an Eldan E2500C, quickly began to exceed expected output levels.
“Elan were quite conservative in their guarantees of output,” Fisher says.
“This was significant, because the cost of their equipment vs some other manufacturers was less, and the output greater than what was guaranteed – so we had a double win on that one.”
The E2500C features a multipurpose rasper, overband magnet, fine granulator and separation table, which work to ensure a minimum loss of metals and at least 99.5 per cent metal purity in the output fraction.
The granulation line has been expanded since its 2013 installation, with Northeast Metal Traders also purchasing specialised electrostatic separation equipment from Eldan to ensure it wasn’t giving any of its metal or plastic away.
“It’s been great. Our plastic is basically metal free,” Fisher says.
“I’ve used a lot of other brands in the chopping business over the years and have found Eldan equipment to be thoughtfully designed. They know their business and how to operate it.”
Despite the sophistication of the machines, Fisher, who helped with the installation due to his love on tinkering, says the assembly process was simple.
“Eldan machines are like when you buy something online and it comes in a box and you take all the pieces out and it fits together perfectly,” he says.
“You don’t have any left-over screws and you don’t have parts that you need to adjust to make it fit.”
In addition to the quality of the machines, Fisher highlights the Eldan team’s commitment to its customers, specifically mentioning Area Sales Manager Carsten Nielsen.
“Carsten is a great guy, he’s been to my home, he knows my wife and children,” Fisher says.
“The Eldan team come to our facility twice a year to service the machines and they are spot on and professional.”
With a spare parts distribution centre in Buffalo, New York, Northeast Metal Traders can quickly access parts when the need arises.
“We exclusively use Eldan parts even though we could probably buy them from someone else and maybe even save some money, but we’ve stayed with all the OEM equipment because of our relationship with the company,” Fisher says.
For more information, contact Carsten Nielsen at cn@eldan-recycling.com or visit www.eldan-recycling.com
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