Press Release

Press Release July 5, 2011
Contact: Mike Giari, Executive Director, Port of Redwood City, 650-30604150

Record Scrap Metal Exports Recorded at Port of Redwood City

 

Sparked by record exports of scrap metal, cargo tonnage for the fiscal year 2010-2011 at the Port of Redwood City was 871,940 metric tons, up 3.5 percent over the prior year, Port Executive Director Mike Giari  announced today.

Sims Metals exported nearly 445,000 metric tons from July 1, 2010, through June 30, 2011, mostly to the Far East.  Giari credited Sims’ record to strong demand abroad for scrap metal, the company’s expanded staging area at the Port, and the fact that scrap now arrives by both truck and rail. This broadens the area from which Sims can receive scrap metal from many sources, including old vehicles.

Sims Metal and the Port have been partners for 35 years, helping Sims’ recycling facility at the Port to be one of the largest exporters of recycled materials in the Bay Area.         

Over the past four years, Sims has made numerous investments and improvements to the Port Redwood City facility, which it leases from the Port.  In that time the company has invested $14 million in its Redwood City operation, by improving “downstream” recovery of non-ferrous metals, adding concrete paving, and installing advanced storm water controls, and modern processing equipment.  The new equipment allows the Port facility to increase efficiency and capture additional metals that were not possible just a few years ago – particularly in the area of separation of non-ferrous metals such as copper and aluminum.

With 60 employees at the Port facility, metallic materials of all kinds are shredded, sheared, screened, sorted, baled and shipped to serve as raw material for the production of steel and other recycled materials. State-of-the-art equipment shreds and separates hundreds of tons of steel per day – material that would otherwise be landfilled or left on the side of road and in abandoned lots.

“The Port facility isn’t your grandfather’s recycling facility or just some junk yard,” explains Steve Shinn, west regional president for Sims. “This is an advanced facility with multi-million dollar technology. Gone are the days of just crushing cars into blocks and shipping them to steel mills. Today, Sims is utilizing magnets, eddy currents, and optical sorting to reduce the need for landfilling as much as we can.”

The Port in Fiscal Year 2011 that ended June 30 also imported 49,628 metric tons of bauxite, a 19 percent increase; 31,755 tons of domestic sand, up 2 percent; 160,378 tons of building material aggregates, down 7 percent; and 185,566 tons of imported sand, down 7 percent.  Thirty-six vessels called on the Port during the FY 2011.

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