Environmental Leadership
Calbag Metals' Environmental Policy: Protecting the environment, recycling the past, preserving the future

Our #1 goal is to provide assurance to our customers that materials they sell to Calbag Metals are handled in a responsible way fully compliant with all environmental regulations.

Calbag Metals was “green” before it was hip to be green, starting in the recycling business 100 years ago in 1907. Today we are a recognized and award-winning leader in environmental stewardship.

Our leadership of environmentally sound processing benefits our customers as well as the environment. Generators of metal scrap can be held liable for downstream contamination from their scrap. For example, if we received material from a manufacturer that included oil in leaky containers causing street spills during transport, or if the oil found its way into waterways, environmental regulators could penalize both the scrap processor and the scrap generator.

Under federal and state environmental laws the liability is joint and several. Scrap metal generators must be careful about choosing a company to handle their scrap. For protection, companies send in their environmental auditors to verify our environmental processes and procedures. Calbag Metals consistently meets and exceeds their standards.

Calbag Metals aggressively pursues environmental stewardship, for the good of the environment, our customers, and our company. Some of our measures include:

• We publish and enforce a list of prohibited materials we will not handle
• Our drivers and dock workers are trained to spot and deal with hazardous contaminates that may be present
• We work with our scrap metal generating customers to become fully familiar with the materials we will be handling, the potential contaminating material that may present, MSDS sheets, etc.
• Strict policies and physical measures in place to eliminate spills and contamination
• Copper, lead, zinc and other materials are tightly controlled under our stormwater regulations to allow little or no exposure to rain water
• We sample our stormwater runoff to verify there has been no contamination
• Oil and grease are closely monitored from source to disposal
• Asphalt berms are constructed around work areas with potential of generating particulates such as when torch-cutting metal
• Industrial floor sweepers collect particulates twice daily
• Oil/water separator and filter treatment system to remove contaminants before discharge to storm sewer

All Calbag Metals facilities in Oregon and Washington have a strong environmental record with no reportable spills, no environmental fines, exceptional housekeeping, and full compliance with stormwater permit requirements.

Calbag’s greatest contribution to the environment, the same contribution that our customers make, is the recycling of scrap metal. The environmental cost of mining raw materials used in metal fabrication is many times greater than that of recovery and smelting of scrap. Recycling of metal means less mining, less depletion of resources, less land filling and less transportation and energy used.