New Jersey Recycler Doing More With Less

Over three generations of continuous growth, George’s Salvage, Newton, N.J., has kept a close eye on how the company utilizes its patch of property in one of the regions most densely populated regions.

“My grandfather brought this yard in 1961,” Mike Miller says. “He was a peddler who collected all kinds of scrap and took it to recyclers in a fruit truck: metals, rags for making paper, you name it. Finally he decided to cut out the middle man and George's Salvage has been here ever since."

The range of equipment on the site has expanded over the years to include shears to process the metals, a baler to compact cardboard and various loading machines. As the business grew, however, the focus shifted to the commodities with the greatest return. To make the best use of their 3-acre site, George’s now deals only in metals, including ferrous, nonferrous and alloyed material.

The latest space saving change at George’s Salvage is a pair of new, specially equipped Sennebogen 835 M scrap handlers. Six months after the first Sennebogen machine arrived at the yard, Mike and his father, George Miller, ordered a second one. The two machines now handle all scrap handling operations in the yard from loading and unloading trucks to feeding the shear. Both are fitted with a custom coupler designed by Mike Miller that allows their operators to switch the grapple attachment to or from a lifting magnet in less than two minutes.

“Our other machines just couldn’t have kept up with the flow of material we need,” Mike says. “We would have had to buy more machines to keep up. Now these machines are doing the work of four.”

Along with reducing the amount of equipment in the yard the machines have also helped by improving efficiency on the site. “The difference from our old machines is night and day: the extended reach really spoils you. You can stack material higher and you don’t have to stop and pick up the outriggers as often,” Mike says. “It’s much easier to load dumps from the back, so that simplifies our traffic in the yard and saves wear on the pavement.”

Mike also says the maintenance of the machines is easy to perform. “Access is readily available, the valves are all right there and we know the Cat engines well.”