President Trump’s recently announced tariffs on imported steel and aluminum have received a lot of attention as of late. In particular, stakeholders across the construction and demolition sectors have voiced concern over whether the tariffs designed to stimulate the U.S. manufacturing industries and the economy at large might have the opposite effect for contractors, in essence throwing the emergency brakes on an industry that is presently enjoying near-record growth.

Under the plan, foreign-made steel shipped to the United States will be subject to a 25 percent tax, while imported aluminum will be subject to a 10 percent tax.

Although the Trump administration has stated that the tariffs will help restore manufacturing at home by encouraging U.S. companies to buy from domestic producers, some industry associations have questioned the validity of the plan, noting that the tariffs could lead to elevated material prices and instigate international trade wars.

“The hope is that uncertainty emerging from the policy making environment will quickly abate,” Anirban Basu, Washington-based Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) chief economist, said in a recent release. “Many agree that there are opportunities for the United States to improve its access to foreign markets, but also that the eruption of full-blown trade wars could bring the current economic expansion to a halt. That would not be good for contractors in terms of demand for their services. It also likely would translate into additional significant increases in overall materials costs as tariffs take hold, which presumably would further dampen profit margin growth.”

Arlington, Virginia-based Associated General Contractors of America CEO Stephen Sandherr echoed a similar sentiment in a recent release, noting, “Tariffs will harm contractors that are currently working on projects for which they have not bought materials and will disrupt budgets for future construction.”

Regarding the implications the tariffs could have on the C&D recycling space, the Milwaukee-based Construction & Demolition Recycling Association (CDRA) told Construction & Demolition Recycling (C&DR) that the association has concerns regarding potential cost advantages that the import taxes could afford foreign manufacturers.

“The CDRA is concerned that possible tariffs on imports of steel could affect its vendor members that manufacture machinery in the U.S. without penalizing foreign machinery manufacturers selling into the U.S., resulting in an unfair cost advantage. But also, the possibility exists to further exacerbate the problems with exports of recyclables to China, as the tariff war could escalate to affect many other parts of the U.S. economy,” CDRA said in a statement.

As with most things related to the global economy, changes in one country’s policy—no matter how well intentioned—can have sweeping ramifications across the globe.

While it might be too early to forecast exactly what the tariffs might mean for the construction, demolition and recycling industries, time will tell whether Trump’s tariffs are the stimulus the U.S. didn’t know it needed or a presidential misstep that hurt the very industries it was meant to protect.

Mryglod Steel & Metals Inc. in Saskatchewan, Canada, is a scrap metal processor with a long history of environmental stewardship. The family-owned company, now in its fourth generation, has followed a business strategy focused on conscientious scrap recycling that has served the company since World War II.

Mryglod purchases scrap from industrial manufacturers, railroads, auto salvage yards, metal dealers and individuals—most of it coming from obsolete machinery and equipment such as automobiles, railroad cars and tracks, home appliances and construction debris. Once the scrap metal arrives at the company’s 10-acre facility, it is processed by sorting, cutting, shredding, torching and baling. Much of the metal is converted into pieces that are the size, density and purity required by steel mills and foundries for melting, for use in the production of new finished steel and other products.

“We process and sell everything we purchase,” Travis Mryglod, vice president and CEO, says. “We understand that buying scrap metal is only half the equation; we need to put it back into the metal manufacturing cycle. Recycling has always been important to our family.”

Travis owns the company with his brothers, Bradley, Tyler and Kyle, and their mother, Sandra.

Understanding the business

The four Mryglod brothers all became full-time employees at the company in 2011 when their father, Kevin, passed away. The brothers’ great-grandfather, Alex, and his three sons started the firm in the 1940s by collecting scrap metal to help build equipment for the military to use in World War II.

Since then, hundreds of thousands of tons of steel, aluminum, copper, lead and other metal products have passed through the Mryglod facility, allowing the family to learn the process.

The firm has baling equipment and bin service to help customers properly recycle their scrap. Additionally, a mobile operation featuring crawler excavators equipped with magnets and large shears allows the company to handle industrial and commercial cleanup projects.

“Since we process everything we buy, we can offer much better prices than others in our business,” Mryglod says. “Other firms buy scrap metal and sell it in the same form. We process what we buy down to its purist form and sell directly to the consumer of that product.”

Overcoming obstacles

The Mryglod business model—buy, process then sell—has served the company well over time. Recently, however, a sluggish economy and lower metal commodity prices have resulted in reduced sales.

“One of the steel mills we sell to makes tubular goods for use in the Canadian oil fields,” Mryglod says. “The demand for those products has been down. The market, and lower prices across the board, meant we did not haul as much as we typically do. As a result, our yard was extremely full for eight months. We had to tighten up everything.”

To ready the company for when demand did return, Mryglod set its sights on increasing its efficiency and fine-tuning its processes.

“We knew that once the yard was full, we had to do something about handling and moving the material,” Mryglod says. “And we had to do it efficiently because commodity prices were low.”

To do a better job of moving its scrap metal and loading trucks, the company purchased a new DX300MH-5 material handler with a 1-cubic-yard grapple attachment from Suwanee, Georgia-based Doosan Infracore North America.

Coincidently, about the time the material handler was delivered by Bobcat of Regina, the nearby Doosan equipment dealer, sales picked up.

“The timing could not have been better,” Mryglod says.

Boosting efficiency

With business now trending upward, Mryglod says there is plenty of activity around the company’s facility, with the DX300MH-5 making a noticeable difference in moving the process forward.

“This is the first purpose-built machine for handling scrap that we ever purchased,” Mryglod says. “Previously, we did this work with construction-type excavators that we converted, either with our own magnet or grapple. But because a warranty is so important, we decided not to buy a new piece of construction equipment and make a bunch of changes that would affect the warranty.”

The main buyer of steel products from Mryglod is the Evraz North America steel mill in Regina, Canada. According to Mryglod, the new equipment has made it easier for the company to transport goods to Evraz in a timely manner.

Mryglod says the company wasn’t able to get all of its trucks loaded in one day before purchasing the material handler. With the new equipment, crews can load all the trucks in an afternoon.

When there is sufficient demand, the company sends out four trucks per day: a 75-yard triaxle dump trailer, two 60-yard tandem dump trailers and a 40-yard tandem truck with a dump body. The 75-yard triaxle dump trailer is the model that usually makes the second trip.

“The material handler, which is mainly used to load trucks, has doubled our efficiency,” he says. “The elevated cab allows us to see down into the boxes of the trucks without having to wonder where our attachment is going. We now get maximum weight in each load because we are able to fill the entire box. Plus, we don’t need a spotter anymore.”

Mryglod points out that the new equipment helps pile the material once it is prepared and ready to ship. It has 15 feet more reach than any other machine the company used previously.

He also rates the machine high in fuel efficiency. “The fuel use to product loaded ratio is probably double what our old machines would do,” he says.

Mryglod’s two construction-type crawler excavators that were replaced by the material handler are now available for off-site work, which frees the company up to tackle new initiatives.

“All of our other equipment will be out this summer on cleanup projects,” Mryglod says. “We have a job at a power plant [where we will] haul away their scrap after they make annual improvements. We also will be on a large farm where we will be cutting up and preparing surplus equipment such as combines and trucks. With the material handler taking care of sorting and loading in the yard, our other equipment can be out working in the field. That will allow us to get maximum use from all of our machines.”

With improved business operations and new equipment functionality enabling the company to streamline its recycling operations, Mryglod says that the future is bright.

“We feel that growth will come naturally by focusing on providing quality service, pricing and honesty to all of our customers, and by doing so with the best employees and equipment in the business,” Mryglod says.

The author is a writer with Two Rivers Marketing, Des Moines, Iowa.

The demolition industry is constantly evolving, and the trends and regulations associated with the remediation side of the industry often appear to be a moving target. Many of the current discussions going on in the industry are centered on two main issues: silica enforcement efforts by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and how to handle polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in the form of building materials and PCB bulk product waste.

The key to handling each of these issues effectively comes down to what the contractor has done in the planning stages of the project. The more time and effort that is put into the planning stages, the more it will help to keep the contractor out of regulatory danger and simplify execution of the project.

Standards for silica control

The OSHA final rule on Occupational Exposure to Respirable Crystalline Silica was published on March 25, 2016. Silica is a natural substance found in most rocks, sand and clay, and thus in products such as bricks and concrete. The demolition process almost invariably produces dust with silica included.

There has been quite a bit of confusion about this rule, in part because OSHA initially deferred enforcement on the standard, in fact several times, but finally started enforcement on Sept. 23, 2017.

During the first 30 days of enforcement, OSHA provided compliance assistance in lieu of citations for companies showing good faith efforts toward compliance. Effective Oct. 23, 2017, OSHA started to fully enforce the entire standard.

The new rule brought some clarity to the permissible exposure limit (PEL) of crystalline silica by setting it at 50 micrograms per cubic meter (50 µg/m3) during an eight-hour time weighted average (TWA), and an action level (AL) of 25µg/m³.

OSHA also added a specific set of work practices and mitigation techniques in what is referred to as Table 1 in the standard. Contractors who follow the guidance for the practices contained in Table 1 will not need to comply with the rest of the standard as the listed mitigation methods are considered by OSHA to be effective for the hazard. More on this can be found online at www.osha.gov/dsg/topics/silicacrystalline/construction.html#tableOneTasks.

However, contractors must be aware that if the work being conducted or the tools are different than what is outlined in Table 1, they become responsible for complying with the full standard, including producing a written program, medical surveillance, exposure monitoring and setting up regulated areas.

Planning and preparing means and methods to be used and comparing those methods to those listed in Table 1 of the standard can save the contractor compliance headaches.

If contractors are unable to make their practices mirror Table 1, then OSHA provides several helpful documents to guide their compliance efforts. These can be found at www.osha.gov/dsg/topics/silica crystalline.

These programs are similar to lead and asbestos programs used every day by contractors. If this still seems confusing, contractors should seek out a safety professional or consultant.

Passing the series of PCB tests

The PCB issue has been prominent since the late 1970s when the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) banned the use of PCBs in domestically manufactured products.

The emphasis in the early days of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) was focused on electrical equipment such as the oil in transformers, capacitors and ballasts, but nonliquid PCBs also can be found in building materials.

The EPA has stated that numerous building materials produced before the PCB ban in 1979 must be handled under TSCA guidelines. These products include: cable insulation; thermal insulation material, including fiberglass, felt, foam and cork; adhesives; tapes; paint; floor finishes and caulking.

The management best practices (MBP) for the demolition of buildings that contain or have the potential to contain PCB materials requires that a hazardous building materials assessment be conducted.

This is not limited to the two materials being discussed in this article, and includes asbestos, lead paint, mercury-containing devices and bulbs and ballasts. The testing of caulks, paints and mastics is a must to identify possible PCB contamination.

Building materials found to contain PCBs in an amount greater than or equal to 50 parts per million (50 ppm) in a nonliquid state must be removed and disposed of as bulk product waste. Any materials that have adhered to the PCB-contaminated building material, where PCBs may have leached into the material, must be either cleaned or disposed of as PCB bulk product waste.

Contractors must be careful, however. If the contractor chooses to clean the material and waste is generated during the cleaning process, it will be considered PCB remediation waste and the contractor must follow the specific TSCA disposal requirements. There are currently three options under TSCA for disposal of remediation waste:

• The first is self-implementing cleanup and disposal (40CFR Section 761.61[a]). This method requires contractors to notify their EPA regional PCB coordinator.
• The second is performance-based disposal (40CFR Section 761.61[b]). This method requires disposal in a TSCA landfill or incinerator through a TSCA-approved disposal method. This method generally does not require approval of the EPA.
• The third method is risk-based cleanup and disposal and provides for alternative cleanup or disposal methods not covered in the first two choices (40CFR Section 761.61 [c]). This method requires that the contractor gain approval from the EPA prior to starting work.

The TSCA PCB disposal rules are prescriptive and can cause regulatory headaches for contractors who do not follow the letter of the law. The EPA provides guides to disposal and PCBs in building materials at www.epa.gov/pcbs.

Whenever the demolition industry moves into new territory, it feels uncomfortable, restrictive and even at times nonsensical. But regulations rarely, if ever, regress, and it is important to face these issues head on and work to improve techniques to implement the new regulations and practices.

The best way to accomplish this is through a robust planning process including a hazardous building assessment to help identify issues before regulators do. If a contractor develops best practices and revise current methods, then he or she can breathe easy and execute the job with reduced risk.

The author is a technical director with Environmental Resource Management (ERM) Group Inc., Malvern, Pennsylvania. Contact him at Mike.Casbon@erm.com.

The construction industry uses a significant amount of the metal produced or imported each year in the United States, whether in the form of steel beams and plates, aluminum extrusions, copper wiring or red metal plumbing pipes and fixtures.

Likewise, when buildings are demolished, the metal within them serves as a significant source of scrap that creates business relationships between demolition contractors and scrap recyclers where each can profit from the harvested material.

When a demo project is large enough, those involved may need to consider bringing a baler onto the job site. In many other cases, scrap facility managers who know demo projects represent a major source of material will equip their yards properly to handle steel beams and other material stemming from the demolition process.

Portable prospects

Bringing a portable baler to a demolition site involves several expenses, so the decision to do so ordinarily is made only after determining the return on investment will be worthwhile.

Factors influencing the decision include the size and construction style of the building and how near or far it is from the yard of the intended scrap buyer. “The size and type of the building will determine the amount of recyclable material available, and the contractor must make the call on the impact of loose material freight versus baling or shearing on-site,” Bob Pfeffer, a product manager with Helsinki-based equipment supplier Metso, says.

Therefore, large industrial buildings or complexes in remote locations can be candidates. “Examples are factories, mills, large building complexes and energy plants,” Steve Weinberg, national sales and marketing director for Lefort America, Sunrise, Florida, says.

Referring to a large power plant demo job in Florida, Weinberg comments, “Due to the size and type of the job, a tremendous amount of steel scrap was generated, thus justifying the shearing and baling of material for larger returns and greater recovery revenue for every load sent.”

A portable machine that can be moved around the job site also offers benefits, Weinberg says, in that, “you can bring the shear/baler unit to the material instead of moving the material to the machine, which many times cannot happen on difficult terrain.”

Another aspect of the decision is whether to purchase a piece of processing equipment, look for a way to lease or rent it or search for a specialty subcontracting firm that focuses on on-site scrap processing.

Curt Spry of Ottumwa, Iowa-based C&C Machining says fewer such specialty on-site baling companies are in the market now compared with a decade ago, but using one can sometimes be the right approach. “Commercial balers come in with an experienced operator and can usually complete the job very quickly,” he says.

If a demo contracting firm determines its ongoing flow of work makes purchasing a baler or shear worthwhile, Pfeffer recommends the firm start by talking to “a reputable equipment manufacturer that can provide capital costs as well as operating costs.” He adds, “A scrap processor also can assist in explaining any premiums [paid] for prepared scrap as compared to unprepared scrap.”

Cutting things down to size

When a large industrial or commercial building is the target, a recycler equipped with stationary equipment that can chew through steel beams may be the right one.

Jeff Ham, who is based in Nashville, Tennessee, for Georgia-based Harris, says, “A guillotine shear in the 1,000-ton range is a vital piece of equipment in a scrap yard” and is well-suited for steel beams that comprise part of the plate and structural grade of ferrous scrap.

“This machine will process scrap at a much lower cost per ton than processing it through a shredder,” he says.

Ham says stationary shears provide advantages to operators compared with shredders. “The quality and condition of the knife blades, as well as the adjustment of them to maintain the proper knife gap, is the primary maintenance concern on a shear. Wear liners and normal hydraulics maintenance also are considerations.”

Not all shearing must take place off-site, however. Weinberg says, “The portable type of attachable shears are available” for rent.

Pfeffer says, “If large steel beams and structures are included, the contractor may have to size this material with a mobile shear mounted on a material handler to be able to ship it.”

Equipped and ready

The relationship between the demolition and scrap industries has been long-lasting and continues to be critical to equipment suppliers. Metso says its new N-Series is designed for metal recycling companies that “operate on many sites or offer scrap processing as a service.”

Sierra International Machinery, Bakersfield, California, has enjoyed significant market share in the sector. The company’s RB5000 portable baler/logger can process up to 22 tons per hour of “logged” scrap material. The company indicates its SLK shear/baler/logger line has been designed to offer “large shear production at a small price.”

Demo contractors considering investing in scrap processing equipment can get advice by talking with their allies in the scrap recycling sector, Spry says. “I would suggest going to see a baler in operation at either an existing demo site or a nearby scrap yard that is processing material similar to what you would have at the demo site.”

To whatever extent they choose to cooperate on a given project, demo contractors and scrap processors each are likely to benefit as manufacturers compete to serve this critical sector.

A version of this article originally ran in the February issue of Recycling Today, a Construction & Demolition Recycling sister publication. The author is an editor with the Recycling Today Media Group and can be reached at btaylor@gie.net.