Recycling was not a term used to describe Hymen Berger’s business plan in 1912, when the Russian immigrant began traveling Rhode Island with a horse and wagon buying and re-selling scrap metal, used paper and rags from textile mills.
“What used to be the junk business is now the recycling business,” said Sam Sinel, who with his brother, Charles Sinel, owns the Pawtucket business started by their grandfather in a barn.
Today, Berger & Co. Recycling is a full-service recycling business that buys used paper, aluminum, copper and other industrial scrap metals, as well as discarded auto parts and electronics that contain trace amounts of precious metals. The company sells what it collects in the global commodities markets.
For a fee, the business also destroys recalled products for manufacturers and operates a document-shredding service. The latter accounts for only a small percentage of the business but is growing quickly. Companies increasingly are seeing benefits in destroying documents to guard trade secrets and prevent identity theft.
Berger Recycling buys most of its goods from contractors, electricians, auto-salvage yards and factories, but also increasingly purchases from individuals looking to make a bit of money recycling soda cans and used paper, Sinel said.
The company markets these raw materials to paper mills, metal smelters and other industrial customers across the globe.
“Copper, lead, aluminum – these are valuable commodities,” Sinel said. “We crush it, sort it and prepare it to our customers’ specifications. We will prepare the material, separate and remove those items that they don’t want. For example, if there is copper tubing with brass fittings, we have machines that will remove the brass from the copper.”
The company generates the greatest percentage of its profits selling used aluminum, but deals in virtually every other metal commodity. Catalytic converters pulled out of junked cars contain minute amounts of platinum, and are worth up to $100.
Operating on a 4-acre, industrial lot on Front Street in Pawtucket, Berger Recycling crushes large volumes of scrap metal and used paper using high-tech, hydraulic baling presses that automatically determine the proper density and size for each material packaged.
Industrial alloys of unknown composition are analyzed using a special x-ray to determine their exact percentages of copper, zinc, nickel, chromium or other valuable metals.
The company owns a truck fleet that transports its raw materials across the United States and to commercial ports in Boston and New York City, where they are shipped all over the world.
The price that aluminum and other metals fetch on the commodity exchanges have come down slightly after reaching record highs in recent years, driven by strong demand in China, India and other fast-developing economies, Sinel said.
“America buys a lot, don’t get me wrong,” he said. “The domestic business is a big business. But China and India – you know, they’re big players nowadays.”
Sinel and his brother started in the family business as children, working weekends and during summer vacations with their mother, who took over Berger Recycling when their father, Abe Sinel, died in 1960 at the age of 51.
In some ways the business has changed; as late as the 1960s, Berger Recycling bought used horsehair mattresses, baling the horsehair and selling it to mattress manufacturers in Europe.
But despite the heightened public focus on industrial recycling in recent years, Sinel said his family’s business is essentially the same one today that his grandfather founded in 1912.
“The recycling industry is an ancient business,” he said. “Paul Revere advertised for scrap metal, which he would melt down to make new silverware. And Benjamin Franklin recycled paper to make new paper. I think that environmental awareness is much more on the minds of individuals, but from an industrial standpoint it’s been around for many, many, many years and there’s nothing new about it.” •
Company Profile: Berger & Co. Recycling Inc.
OWNERS: Sam and Charles Sinel
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Full-service recycling company
LOCATION: 126 Front Street, Pawtucket
EMPLOYEES: 25
YEAR ESTABLISHED: 1912
ANNUAL SALES: WND
