High hopes: the skyscrapers of New York hold much of the opportunity for Metropolitan Paper Recycling Inc

Recycling Today, Oct, 2005 by Brian Taylor

As the nation's largest city and a global finance and banking center, New York offers an abundance of scrap paper that provides tonnage to dozens of competing recycling companies in the region.

For office grades, the borough of Manhattan offers block after block of office towers in the mid-town and Wall Street regions, while much of the space in between is occupied by retail and mixed-use buildings that generate significant amounts of old corrugated containers (OCC), mixed paper and other scrap paper grades.

Sending trucks into the streets of Manhattan as well as into New York's other boroughs is how Metropolitan Paper Recycling, based in Brooklyn, procures the material that keeps its sorting and baling facility busy.

STARTING UP. John Bianco and his sons, John Jr., Eric and Greg, have pursued different career paths, but a common denominator has often been paper recycling.

Between the four of them, they have experience with various companies in the New York City area. All have served as truck route drivers and in other operations and management positions.

The Biancos pooled their collective experience together in 2000, when BFI merged into Allied Waste and the newly-combined company sold some of its recycling assets in the New York City area.

The effort by the Biancos to buy one such recycling operation in Brooklyn took a prolonged amount of time to work its way through the Business Integrity Commission of New York City. But on Aug. 1, 2002, Greg Bianco became CEO of the newly formed Metropolitan Paper Recycling, which now owned the assets of the former Allied Waste recycling plant in the east New York neighborhood of Brooklyn.

Since the company's creation, Bianco family members have been involved as needed. Greg was pivotal in getting Metropolitan started and remains its CEO. John St. has provided guidance throughout in terms of customer service and reconfiguring the Brooklyn plant. Eric, a former recycling industry dispatcher, has been involved in operations, maintenance, transportation and logistics for Metropolitan Paper Recycling.

With just a few years under its belt, Metropolitan Paper Recycling is employing more than 120 people and using all of its 117,000-square-foot plant capacity to process between 12,000 and 15,000 tons per month of old news (ONP), old magazines (OMG), office paper and old corrugated containers (OCC), according to Greg.

Paper collected from accounts throughout New York makes its way into the plant, but one account in particular has been critical for Metropolitan Paper Recycling.

CITY SERVICE. "We get the bulk of our material from the city's Department of Sanitation," notes Greg. Curbside material collected through a contract between the city of New Yorks Department of Sanitation Curbside Recycling Program and Potential Industries, Wilmington, Calif., is brought to Metropolitans Brooklyn facility for sorting and baling before being brokered by Potential Industries, usually to the Asian paper mills for which it procures material.

Greg estimates that 40 percent of the tons that make their way into the Metropolitan facility stem from the contract. This material is heavy in ONP and OMG, with a sorting system installed by Sherbrooke OEM of Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada, helping the plant produce clean grades for shipping.

Greg says Alain Brasseur and Bruce Cafasso of Sherbrooke have been an integral part of setting up the plant. They, along with Metropolitan plant manager Glen Murray, helped design and install the system.

Although the Department of Sanitation contract is the largest single source of paper, it is just one source of material among many. Another significant contract has Metropolitan Paper Recycling collecting material from a government contract serving four of New York's five boroughs.

Additionally, the company's crew of drivers and fleet of 35 trucks have multiple stops on the 18 daily routes they run throughout the New York City metropolitan area. "We service a healthy percentage of the major supermarkets in New York City and many smaller corner stores," says Greg

For its customers, the company will "place little vertical balers for smaller customers or supply larger balers and wire for larger customers," he remarks.

Another service Metropolitan Paper Recycling offers is trash pickup and disposal. "We're collecting about 85 percent recyclable fiber and about 15 percent trash, but it's a service we have to offer to protect our recycling interests," says Greg.

Recyclers in major cities throughout North America face the task of sending trucks into congested central business districts and down narrow back alleys in downtown areas. But nowhere is this task as daunting as it is in Manhattan.

"The bridge to Manhattan is about 5.5 miles from our plant, but during the daytime it can take you two hours to travel that distance," notes Greg. "In terms of servicing our Manhattan customers, if we can't pick up from them in the middle of the night, it's not worth doing. Most of our commercial routes pick up between 7 p.m. and 5 a.m.," he adds.