One man's scrap is a Torres treasure

April 20, 2003

If you live in the Brazos Valley and have some extra scrap metal lying around, take it to Torres Salvage Yard and Torres Metal Processing in Navasota. TSY specializes in scrap metal recycling.

 TSY Inc. began approximately 45 years ago by Ralph Torres and Modesta Baldibino Torres, on a tract of land west of Navasota. The land was purchased wit5h a veterans Affairs loan after Torres returned from World War II and went to work for a railroad company. Convinced he could make a better living on his own, he purchased a truck and began to haul gravel and other commodities.

 Torres and his wife began by selling parts off old cars. When all useable parts were sold off the cars the remaining metal would be crushed and hauled to Houston.

 Torres got his big break when he went to a local machine shop in search of a job. The person in charge told him he could haul off the shavings if he could pick up the shavings on the ground. He then bought a few trailers and some hoppers to handle the shavings directly out of the shop. He made a profit and sought out more shops in the Houston area. His wife was in charge of  the financial matters and all the major decisions. Torres passed away in Feb. of 1994, and his wife passed in May of 1997. Their children currently run the business.

David Torres, son and purchasing and sales manager said, "if it is made of metal we will take it. We take everything from dishwashers to lawnmowers, stainless steel and aluminum cans to old cars. People bring us all kinds of things. You know the old saying, one mans scrap is another's treasure. Rates change from month to month. People can call before they come in and get the current prices we are paying for scrap.

People bring cars to be recycled need to ensure all the fluids have been properly drained from the vehicle. As well as buying from the public, Torres Metal Processing, and Torres Salvage Yard collects metal from around the state.

We have collection bins set up at machine shops. They call us when the bins get full and we go get them," David said. "We bring it back here prepare it and then send it out to the mills.

David said the business also benefits the community.

 We are trying to do our part for the community," he said. "We keep the area clean so people don't have junk laying around. We move several thousand tons of metal a month in and out of here. Additionally we employ 37 people.

Of the 37 employees, eight are the sons and daughters of Ralph and Modesta Torres.

We tend to get over business conflicts faster because we have family background. David said. "We can't stay mad at each other for to long."

Understand that being a scrap metal dealer isn't what most people consider glamorous. For decades, the recycling trade - like farming - has been handed down from generation to generation. "It's not the type of industry that people are going to go to college for - it's in your blood," said Torres, who grew up working in his father's scrap metal business. But the process of handling junk - known these days as recyclables - has been transformed in the last two decades, as second- and third-generation scrap metal dealers find themselves barely able to compete in the increasingly high-tech, global metal recycling business. Beginning in the 1980s, more people and businesses began recycling for environmental and economic reasons. The newfound interest arrived just as U.S. factories that used scrap metal as the raw material to make everything from engines to farm equipment began shutting down amid a recession that forever changed the nation's - and this region's - manufacturing landscape.

Suddenly, there were no buyers for a huge glut of scrap metal that was building up at scrap yards throughout the nation. That led to scrap metal dealers combining and forming large corporations to better handle the abundance of cheap metal. Scrap dealers also began to look overseas for new markets. Meanwhile, individual and family-owned dealers struggled to stay competitive. "Things are so different than they were years ago," Torres said. "And it happens so quickly. You have to react a lot faster than you used to." These days, with an uncertain economy and ever-larger competitors, Torres said, it is increasingly difficult for a single business to survive in the market.

By its simplest definition, a scrap recycler takes in metal - old refrigerators, stoves, furnaces, nearly anything containing metal - breaks it down, separates it, stockpiles it and waits for a foundry, smelter or mill to buy it. But there's a lot more that goes into the process. Torres Metals Processing has about 40 employees . They a dozen  trucks, trailers, shredders, shearers, cranes and cutters. They have a device that looks like a handgun that detects the composition of a piece of metal down to thousandths of a percent, so they can categorize it by grade. Defective tire rims rejected by their manufacturers create one pile. Mangled shopping carts form another 30-foot-tall cone. A crane picks over a pile of sharp metal strips in another spot. Huge trucks bring in a tangled mess of truck grills, bathtubs and kitchen sinks. Later, that material is shipped out in small squares that can slide easily into a foundry furnace.

A sign advertises a 45-cents-a-pound special for aluminum cans. In the back, helmet-clad, safety goggle-wearing workers in overalls feed cans to a noisy conveyor belt that spits the compacted aluminum into a metal container. And this is just a sampling of a single day's work, adding up to millions of pounds of metal that gets processed by the company each year.

Each has a specialty

Torres went into the scrap metal business with his father, who had familiarized himself with the business in the 1960s. Father and son had no forklifts or cranes, so they loaded the sinks, hubcaps, pots and pans into barrels and moved them around by hand.

"It was a lot of manual labor," he said. "But there was no other option. It was how it was done in those days."

"The processing part has become very involved, so we're forced to be as efficient as we can to make a profit in this business," Torres said. "We're working with very sophisticated and expensive equipment. There are different processes for steel, for aluminum and for copper, and we all bring additional capability and know-how to the table."

"We have to combine our manpower and brainpower," he said. "It's not a one-man business any longer."