Thieves Pry Steel From City Streets

High prices being paid for scrap metal have some thieves taking the recycling ethic too far. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

High prices being paid for scrap metal have some thieves taking the recycling ethic too far. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:


There’s a bidding war between U.S. and Chinese firms for scrap metal. But it’s not just honest
people who are getting up to 300-hundred dollars per ton for material like scrap steel. Some
communities report that thieves are stealing sewer covers and sewer grates and getting cash from
metal recyclers who look the other way. In Milwaukee, more than 160 grates have been stolen
just this year.


Marty Forman runs a Milwaukee scrap recycling company. He deplores the
thefts, but says it’s impossible to trace altered metal.


“Metal has no memory. Once you melt metal, it doesn’t remember who it used to be. It’s just
copper, it’s just steel, it’s just brass.”


Forman predicts scrap metal prices will drop by the end of the summer. But in the meantime, he
urges scrap recyclers to work with police and give thieves a cold shoulder when they bring in hot
and heavy metal.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.