21st century scrap yard = recycling center

Entering the family-owned Clearview Recycling facility in Hainesville, you might expect to see a labyrinth made out of mountains of scattered junk, or perhaps a burly-looking man standing on a pile of metal toasters ripping the extension cords out of them.

That’s the old view of what was once called a scrap yard. Today it is a recycling center where selling your unwanted items can translate into cash.

At the full service scrap metal recycling company at 250 W. Belvidere Road, owners Tom Seputis and his two sons, Tom Seputis Jr. and Mike Seputis, along with their 13 employees, greet, meet and work with contractors, commercial businesses and the general public.

Their customers are from all walks of life – but what they have in common is the desire to recycle as well as get some money in return.

“We get moms with kids with a car load of [pop] cans who come in once a week and we get those who drop off stuff three to four times a day, with truck loads of materials they find or that people pay them to pick-up,” Tom Seputis Jr. said.

“People have misconceptions about [scrap yards],” he added.

Tom says some of those misconceptions are somewhat amusing, like the ones that may come from how scrap yards are portrayed in the movies.

“We’re not places where the mafia meets at night to crush people in cars,” Tom said.

Other misconceptions are not so amusing.

“There’s not heaps of trash everywhere and our employees are educated people,” Tom said.

The Clearview Recycling facility is organized in ways that make it easy for their customers to get in and out fast. And they follow the Illinois state law requiring a copy of an ID from every one of their customers who has a transaction of $100 or more.

For those who have something small, such as a box of extension cords, it can be a fairly easy process that consists of parking in the front lot, walking into the office and handing an employee the materials to process in the computer database, weigh them and get paid for them.

For the regulars, those called scrappers, the facility has a truck scale they drive through on their way to the back of the facility where they dump their loads.

Some loads are small carrying a few radios, a toaster and maybe a baby stroller, while others are of a more significant size, carrying washing machines and refrigerators.

Big or small the trucks don’t stop coming, Tom said.

“We get 150 to 200 trucks and cars on the truck scale per day,” Tom said.

The back area, where that truck traffic goes to dump items and the big machines do their loud crushing work of metals is where Mike Seputis works, and he says it gets pretty interesting sometimes.

“Sometimes we get things that you look at and you have no idea what it could be or what it could be used for,” Mike said.

Mikes enjoys kidding around with his regulars, such as Joe Shands of Round Lake Heights.

Shands said he drops off items at the facility four times an day, five times a week. He collects items from businesses that call him to haul off their stuff and on garbage runs.

“This type of job is very hard work; very physical,” Shands said.

Almost every day he has body aches due to the physical labor he does when collecting and dropping off  items, but he says, to him, it’s worth it.

“I like the money,” Shands said, although he never really knows what kind of day he’ll have.

“Sometimes you make $80 on a run, other times you make $240,” Shands said.

Husband and wife Bill and Pam LaMarche of Lakemoor say they “scrap” because they enjoy it. They’ve been doing it as a hobby for many years and Bill said it’s a lot of fun.

“You never know what you’ll find,” Bill  said. The watch he wears is one of those lucky finds.

“I love this watch,” Bill said.

The prices on aluminum, copper, brass and other materials are always fluctuating. Customers can get more or less money for their items depending on that factor.

But the one thing Tom says remains constant is what the facility and the community are doing for the environment.

“We’re helping the community stay clean by keeping things out of the landfills,” Tom said.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, recycling saves enough energy each year to provide heat and light for 400,000 Illinois homes.

Discarded items such as old torn lawn chairs and baby strollers are kept out of the ever-increasing piles of junk in landfills when they get dropped off at the Clearview Recycling Center.  Instead they become new lawn chairs and baby strollers sold at stores or entirely different items as they get scrapped for metal.

“We get people who clean out their garage and think to bring in some of their things and find out how much money they could have made over the years instead of throwing their stuff away,” Tom said.

Recycling this way won’t get all the bills paid, though. A 24-case of empty pop cans equals one pound of aluminum, which pays 50 cents. But Tom says it all adds up.

“I encourage people to try it for a month and see if they like it,” Tom said.