Online Scrap Exchange Launches
Cover story by Amanda Smith-Teustch, Waste & Recycling NewsA newly launched website is hoping to become the eBay of scrap.
“We want to find homes for materials currently being landfilled,” said Brooke Farrell, who along with Chad Farrell founded RecycleMatch and RecycleMatch.com.
RecycleMatch is an online marketplace for all kinds of scrap: construction debris, organics, fabrics and textiles, plastics, rubber, wood, anything that can be reused or recycled.
“We hope to build a more liquid market that has greater transparency of pricing around those materials,” said Chris Porch, the new CEO of RecycleMatch.
Companies tend to stay close when placing their waste streams, he said.
“They tend to use a very close-knit network of brokers or buyers that they can trust because they’ve done business with them before, but they also feel they don’t know they’re getting the best price because of the lack of knowledge of what transactions are happening and what prices people are getting,” Porch said. “Long term we hope to become the transparent liquid market for commodity recyclables and the trusted place where large companies and municipalities can go to divert materials from landfills.”
Listings are growing on the site, and can be one-time or steady stream. For example, a company in Texas produces 360,000 pounds of vegetable waste — mainly carrots and potatoes — per month and wants to find someone to take it off its hands. It’s free to anyone who can haul it away.
Another company in Santa Ana. Calif., has 120,000 pounds per month of HDPE natural rolls, at a suggested price of 15 cents per pound. And another has 3,000 pounds of steel scrap that they’ll load for free onto someone’s truck.
Owners of material list their waste and recyclable commodities on the website, giving locations of material, descriptions, and a suggested price for the material. Bidders can look at the information and decide how much they want to offer. The site uses a closed bidding system, meaning bidders see how their price ranks in relation to other bids, but not what the actual bid is. Confidentiality works both ways — bidders and sellers don’t learn who they’ve done business with until the transaction is complete.
Once the auction closes, the seller can choose the winning bid, and it doesn’t have to be based on price.
“Many of them care about other criteria, such as destination,” Porch said. “They may care about the intended use of the material or other environmental factors. Once they’ve selected a buyer, we send an e-mail to both parties so they can arrange for logistics.”
Then, the company acts as an escrow service, retaining 5% of the purchase price as its commission. If the transaction had no price attached to it, the company charges a $5 per ton “waste diversion fee.”
“A lot of materials from sellers, they don’t care about getting paid for,” Porch said. “They may be just trying to achieve sustainability or zero waste goals, or are trying to reduce their landfill costs. They can then give their materials away for free.”
Brooke Farrell worked in advertising for many years, including as a brand manager for Waste Management.
“One of things she saw change a few years ago was companies responding to mandates — from the government or through larger companies that are pushing mandates down their supply chain — to deal with their waste and recyclables, to get it out of landfills and to get it [to] zero waste,” Porch said. “That change is an exciting thing to learn about, and to see the urgency that companies have to try to solve these problems.”
For more information visit www.recyclematch.com.
For original article visit Waste & Recycling News
