ISRI challenges SRI conclusions on steel recycling rates

Robin Wiener, president of the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI), Washington, D.C., recently challenged conclusions in a Steel Recycling Institute (SRI) press release that announced the steel recycling rate decreased in 2006. Wiener said that steel recycling increased by about 7 percent in 2006 in terms of volume, and the recycling rate citied by the SRI reflected the strength of the steel marketplace because economic growth stipulated a greater demand for steel products.

ISRI also challenged SRI's claim that ferrous scrap prices indicate that inventories of the material are at historic lows, saying that obsolete scrap is the largest component of steelmaking from recycled material, and obsolete scrap supplies will continue to meet the demands of domestic steel mills and foreign consumers.

In a July 2005 study commissioned by ISRI, the research firm Nathan Associates determined that from 1983 to 2003, the national inventory of obsolete ferrous scrap grew by 423.2 million tons, to 1.1 billion tons, as of Dec. 31, 2003.