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

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.

ON THE SELL SIDE.

Once scrap paper is in hand at the Metropolitan Paper Recycling plant, there is certainty that it will find a home at a consuming destination.

In addition to the Potential Industries arrangement that sees municipally collected fiber head to export markets, Metropolitan Paper works closely with other buyers who provide homes for its secondary fiber. Often, the common denominator is exporting.

"China has changed our marketplace," says Greg. "Previously, we've always had to deal with hills and valleys, but now there is that consistent demand from East Asia." In addition to Potential Industries, Metropolitan moves a lot of material through the America Chung Nam Inc. (ACN) Jersey City office. The brokerage represents Nine Dragons Paper Industries of China.

Greg credits Scott Taylor of ACN with providing reliable brokerage service and consistent buying patterns.

Sweden-based brokerage CellMark AB is another buyer of Metropolitans tonnage. That company has praised the "consistently high-quality material" that it acquires from the Brooklyn plant.

"Jimmy Derrico has been a good part of the Metropolitan Paper Recycling story from day one, says Greg. "Jimmy has become a good friend and CellMark has become an integral part of our business growth," he adds.

According to Greg, the company markets 99 percent of its paper through its three key brokerage arrangements. The relationships with the brokers have resulted in long-term contracts, helping minimize potential disruptions caused by volatile pricing and inventory build-ups caused by disappearing demand.

SERVICE SECTOR. As do other successful recyclers, Greg tries to make sure he and Metropolitan Paper Recycling's employees remember that only continued good service will keep the company on a profitable track.

The good service is possible in part because the recycling plant is equipped to handle the high volumes of fiber that come in, Greg notes. He credits the Sherbrooke OEM sorting system installed in 2004, a Harris Centurion baler installed this year and another high-volume baler made by IPS Balers Inc. that was installed in 2003 for providing a technological edge.

Employees who feel like their work is respected provide good service, Greg adds. "We remember our roots as drivers," he says of the company's leadership team. "We respect our drivers as much as we would the president of our largest customer." The result, he claims: "We have very low employee turnover: Nobody quits. Just about everybody who has been in my office since we started in 2002 is still there."

They "built the company hiring people who can think on their feet," which also helps, Greg says.

As things now stand, Metropolitan Paper Recycling is on track to achieve triple the revenue in 2005 compared to its first year of operations, and Greg sees more growth ahead. "Our dispatchers and drivers put service first and customers first. That's how we structured the company and that's our signature here. New York is a huge marketplace, and we have a lot of options in terms of growth."

RELATED ARTICLE: Lots of attention.

Metropolitan Paper is benefiting from its involvement in a contracting serving the curbside recycling program operated by the City of New York's Department of Sanitation.

But the bountiful tonnage coming in from the largest city in America's curbside program is in the crosshairs or many recycling firms, including one the world's leading scrap metals companies.

Initial scrap company interest in New York's curbside material came from Hugo Neu Corp., a long-time scrap metals processing and trading firm based in Manhattan with a large processing facility across the Hudson River an Jersey City.

Hugo Neu Corp. and the city of New York announced an arrangement in September of 2004 striking a long-term deal between the two entities whereby much of the city's collected material would be processed at a recycling plant to be built by Hugo Neu Corp. in south Brooklyn. Details to finalize that contract have reportedly been in the works since that announcement.

RELATED ARTICLE: Student counsel.

Established recyclers in New York nave set up many efficient plants to handle the variety of recyclable materials generated in the Big Apple. Judging by one recent student thesis project, there will be no shortage of future ideas as to how to process the paper, cans and bottles flowing into the recycling stream.

A senior thesis project by a City College of New York (CCNY) architecture student offers a recycling facility floor plan designed to offer educational benefits for plant visitors.

The 158,000-square-foot facility designed by student Lior Schapiro is configured to fit onto an existing rail yard in the south Bronx. The design took top design honors in a recent CCNY Schools of Architecture. Urban Design and Landscape Architecture student competition.

According to CCNY Director of Public Relations Ellis Simon, the plan creaks the mold of conventional factory design." The building's exterior walls would be made of glass, allowing for plenty of natural light to enter and permitting passers-by to see in Additionally, the "jutting angles of the building's exterior walls and roofline ... resemble a container being crushed as it goes through the recycling process," according to Simon.

Says Schapiro, "I want to bring a new concept to industrial design that reproves the image of the factory and brings more people to these kinds of places." His proposed audience includes schoolchildren on class trips who would observe recycling processes from walkways above the plant as well as from a separate education center.

Within his thesis Schapiro writes that the is hopeful such a material recovery facility can held "attract people to this industry."

The author is editor of Recycling Today and can be reached at [e-mail].