Abstract
Metal recycling is a sustainable urban industry supplied by scrap metal formally collected from primary metal producers, manufacturers, and informal collectors of discarded recyclable materials. Increased worldwide demand for metal and the limited primary metal production capabilities of developing nations, particularly China, has raised the price of scrap metal and elevated scrap metal as the United States’ leading sustainable export, annually generating billions of dollars in revenue. This study theoretically situates formal scrap suppliers and scrap wholesalers (i.e. scrap yards) as elements of industrial symbiosis (Chertow MR, Annu Rev Energy Environ 25:313–337, 2000) and informal scrappers as urban mining agents (Brunner J Ind Ecol 15:339-341, 2011) whose behaviors strongly resemble that of social foragers (Giraldeau LA, Caraco T, Social foraging theory. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2000). Using Detroit as a case study, empirical analyses, informed by field-based observations and interviews, were conducted to support each theoretical framework. Specific analysis topics included the impact of metal prices on green job creation in the metal recycling industry, the locational determinants of scrap yards, the possible role of unemployment on the informal scrapper population, the destructive impact of criminal informal metal collectors, and a geo-visualization of optimal locations to informally extract scrap metal in Detroit. The successful analyses demonstrated in this chapter support the applied theoretical frameworks as a valuable platform to study the metal recycling industry and also produced new empirical and ethnographic insights on scrap metal supply chains, which deserve more intensive research as a vehicle for urban sustainability.
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Chohaney, M.L., Yeager, C.D., Gatrell, J.D., Nemeth, D.J. (2016). Poverty, Sustainability, & Metal Recycling: Geovisualizing the Case of Scrapping as a Sustainable Urban Industry in Detroit. In: Gatrell, J., Jensen, R., Patterson, M., Hoalst-Pullen, N. (eds) Urban Sustainability: Policy and Praxis. Geotechnologies and the Environment, vol 14. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26218-5_8
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