Upstate Shredding invests millions in automotive shredder residue equipment

A multi-million-dollar project that includes the installation of a 3000 horsepower Riverside Engineering shredder is underway at Upstate Shredding-Weitsman Recycling’s Port of Albany facility in the US.

The new shredder can shred as much as 80 tons of scrap material per hour and will add 20 additional positions at the Albany facility. The unit, which will handle all automotive shredder residue (ASR) on-site, features a 70-inch mill.

According to company ceo Adam Weitsman, all ASR will be sent to the company’s recently upgraded ‘state-of-the-art’ processing plant in Owego so additional non-ferrous metals can be extracted. This innovative recycling centre hosts a micro fines plant, wire chopping plant and newly commissioned dry media plant. By next month, the micro fines plant where the precious metals will be recovered will be fully operational.  

1 million tons of shredded scrap

‘This will be the third shredder for the company, and it is perfectly positioned within our geographic footprint to complement our shredding operations in Owego, New York and New Castle, Pennsylvania. In 2019, our goal is to process 1 million tons of shredded scrap alone between the three shredders,’ the ceo comments. ‘Given current scrap volumes at our feeder yards we feel this goal will be easily attainable,’ he adds.

Weitsman points out that the shredded metal produced at Albany will be sold and shipped directly from the Port of Albany via truck, barge, deep sea vessel and rail. The businessman goes on to state that Upstate Shredding’s Syracuse yard is currently undergoing a US$ 5 million renovation.

Strange shredding stories

At the moment, Upstate Shredding-Weitsman Recycling runs a total of 17 locations in New York and Pennsylvania, thus making it one of the largest scrap metal processors on the East Coast. But regardless of the firm’s steady growth, the journey was not completely without turbulence.

In a rather unusual turn of events, company ceo Adam Weitsman recently felt compelled to hire a local polygraph examiner so he could take a polygraph test to ‘lay to rest’ a rumour saying he was involved in disposing of the body of a murder victim.

The rumour dates back all the way to 2001, when local millionaire Cal Harris was accused of killing his wife after she disappeared in the middle of divorce negotiations. Though her body was never found and Harris was acquitted of all charges in 2016, ex-employee of Upstate Shredding Robert Levesque continued to spread rumours, including online, saying that Weitsman ‘shred the woman’ to cover up the murder.

Weitsman sued Levesque for defamation and libel in 2017, demanding US$ 200 000 in damages, which he has pledged to donate to charity. A judge has since ruled that Levesque’s speculations are entirely unfounded, on top of which the man has been instructed to remove any accusations from  the internet and refrain from mass-communications regarding the crime ‘in any form’.

Weitsman has stated he is ‘very thankful’ for the verdict of US district judge Mae D’Agostino, and is eager to put the affair behind him.