Mankato Iron & Metal, Inc
215 W Elm St, Mankato, Minnesota, United States

Recycling scrap metal can be great for your business. Scrap metal is unwanted metal parts and pieces which are traded and sold as a commodity as well as used to practical effect. Trading in scrap metal prevents the need for further manufacturing by reducing the overall demand, saves your business money, and saves the environment.

History

Mankato Iron and Metal is a locally-owned family business in the truest sense. It was opened for three brothers– Ron, Terry, and Greg–as well their dad, Wilbur Pooley. Scrap is in the family for the Pooleys! They have been in the scrap business their whole lives; growing up and working at Wilbur’s scrap yard located next to the Green Giant plant in Blue Earth, MN. Today there are three scrap yards in the Pooley family which are all located in Southern Minnesota.

On April 1st 1972 Mankato Iron and Metal opened its doors for business with its yard located just off West Elm Street in Old Town Mankato. The office was located just up the street at 514 North Front Street and was shared with Minnesota Iron and Metal. Minnesota Iron and Metal was also the source of some of their early equipment like the Alligator Sheer, which was used for cutting iron into 3 foot pieces for many years. Quickly, the yard had grown and more equipment was added along the way. A Mosley Baler was one piece of that equipment and it is still in use today at Mankato Iron and Metal; a feat which is quite amazing considering the toll handling scrap takes on equipment. In 1974, a luger scrap hauling truck was added to start to handle industrial scrap from the region. Our first account was S & T Industry in St. James, MN and we are proud to say that after all these years, they are still one of our many industrial accounts. This is a testament to the exceptional service we are able to provide our industrial scrap accounts.

In 1975, a warehouse was built with an attached office. This meant that all services were located at one location for the first time to better serve our customers. In 1976, the brothers bought the business from Wilbur and continued to grow. In 1977, we bought our first tractor and trailers to be able to better serve our larger scrap and industrial accounts. Over the years, we have had 6 different trucks and 6 different luger trucks. 1978 brought the first hydraulic crane, a Mosley brand crane, to help move and handle the scrap more efficiently. In April of 1979, Mankato Iron and Metal was incorporated as a business.

Business continued to flourish at the yard for the next several years and in 1983 the yard was expanded across Elm Street, which moved the ferrous yard to its current location. A warehouse location was added as well. The mid 80’s also brought more expansion to the ferrous side of the operation. Two connected buildings were purchased from the Dotson Company and are used today for metal sorting and storage, along with metal receiving and purchasing. A part of those buildings was also used to start the aluminum smelting furnace operation. This has proved to be very beneficial for Mankato Iron and the aluminum recycling aspect of our business.

The 90’s again brought its fair share of changes. Terry sold his portion of the operation in 1991to start his own scrap yard in New Richland, Minnesota. The one door can operation was then moved from the office location on Elm Street to its current 3 receiving door location on Willow Street. This move made a more streamline can operation which helps to make Mankato Iron one of the largest aluminum can buyers in the upper Midwest. In 1997, a Sierra Baler/Shear was added to the ferrous operation, replacing the old alligator and gravity fed shears. In 1998, the office was moved from Elm Street to be closer to the can operation and metal receiving area to better serve our customers. This move also included adding an 80 foot long self-axeling scale to help handle larger trucks.

Early in 2012, Mankato Iron made another significant change. Ron and Greg sold the business to the next generation of Pooley scrappers. Dr. Tom Pooley will take the helm of operations starting January 1st 2013 and will continue to offer great service, maintain customer satisfaction and continue to grow the business. Ron and Greg are still present at Mankato Iron, and they soon hope to step back and enjoy retirement. Tom has two young children with his wife Hilary and hopes they will also show an interest in the scrap business in the future.

Environmental Mission

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

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. Mankato Iron and Metal consistently meets and exceeds their standards.

Mankato Iron and Metal 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

• Industrial floor sweepers collect particulates daily

• Oil/water separator and filter treatment system to remove contaminants before discharge to storm sewer

Mankato Iron and Metal has a strong environmental record with no reportable spills, no environmental fines, exceptional housekeeping, and full compliance with stormwater permit requirements.

Our 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.