Nov. 24--When you get a new car, you probably don't give a lot of thought to what happens to your old one.

OmniSource Corp. does, and has just spent about $2.5 million to make its auto-recycling business more "green" -- in more ways than one.

Sometime next month, the Fort Wayne-based scrap company will turn on its "reducing mill," the latest addition to its operation in the former Fruehauf trailer plant at 2001 E. Pontiac St.

The new facility will do exactly what its name implies: reduce freshly shredded automotive nonferrous scrap from fist-sized chunks into pieces 2 inches long or smaller.

That's good for two reasons, according to plant manager Troy Werling.

First, the smaller size will allow other parts of the plant to remove more aluminum, copper, brass, zinc and other metals from the material shredded at other OmniSource plants, including one off Maumee Avenue that uses magnets to remove the steel for reuse by the firm's parent company, locally based Steel Dynamics Inc., and other customers.

In the past, about 75 percent of nonferrous metals would be removed from the shredded automotive waste, but the reducing mill should increase that figure to 95 percent or better -- producing even more cash for a company that generates annual sales of about $3 billion from about 7.4 million tons of ferrous and nonferrous scrap.

But converting refuse into revenue will do more than improve the bottom line. It should also reduce the volume of shredded seats, dashboards and other nonmetallic waste going into landfills by about 2 percent, Werling said -- not an insubstantial number, considering the Pontiac Street facility processes 40 million pounds of materials every month.

OmniSource, purchased by SDI in a $1 billion deal last year, was founded in 1920 and is one of North America's largest processors and distributors of scrap. It operates 65 facilities in the U.S. and Canada, employing 2,700 -- including 70 at the Pontiac Street plant. That number will not change once the reducing mill is operational, Werling said.

Despite the new mill's increased efficiency, the recent economic downturn will reduce the company's financial gains, at least in the short term. As the economy has slowed, so has the demand for products requiring the materials OmniSource recycles. Scrap aluminum prices, for example, have fallen from more than $1 a pound over the summer to less than 60 cents a pound today.

"Those were the good old days," said Ben Eisbart, OmniSource senior vice president, adding that the mill's use will cap more than 18 months of planning and preparation, which included approval from the Fort Wayne Board of Zoning Appeals.

The mill was manufactured by the American Pulverizer Co. of St. Louis.

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