62 BCBusiness February 2015
It's a big business that is only going to
get bigger: as greenfield metal ore grades for commodities
like copper continue to plummet, the amount of energy
required to harvest what's left is rising. It will make more
and more sense—both economically and environmentally—
to increase efforts to mine our cities and industrial sites for
the metals we need to live.
On a recent visit to
ABC, BCBusiness is met at the gate by
30-year-old Nick Lorenzo,
ABC's environmental and safety
specialist. Since Lorenzo started working here in 2007, the
company has grown from three locations to nine—includ-
ing a recent one in Fort St. John, established to exploit all
the scrap being generated by B.C.'s oil and gas industry.
Lorenzo points to a handful of men crouched in the
middle of the yard, hand-sorting a pile of grimy brass and
copper into piles. "Everyone starts in the yard," he says
of the sorters.
ABC remains a closely knit, fourth-genera-
tion family business (owned by the Yochlowitz clan, with
fourth-generation
CEO David Yochlowitz now in charge),
where all newbies must "learn their metals" on the ground;
by the time workers spend a month sorting by hand, they
can identify most scrap by touch.
ABC Recycling acquires scrap metal, separates it into the
purest possible "commodity streams" and sells it further
up the recycling value chain.
Consistent procurement of quality scrap is vital to profit-
ability, and to that end, it's Randy Kahlon's job to, as he puts
it, "feed the monster." As
ABC's manager of business develop-
ment, procurement and sales, he leads a seven-person team
sourcing scrap from industrial and government customers
while constantly scrambling to find new supply. He says it is
