Built to Work: Episode 11: Jennifer Betts - Magnar Metals

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQkzJBLEU-I

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Welcome to Built To Work the podcast that gets its hands dirty dives into the grid and uncovers the heart of what makes the blue-collar world tick I'm Collin your host and I'm sitting down with the people who keep our world running from those tackling the tough jobs no one else dares to do to the HR professionals working overtime to find the labor force we desperately need Whether you're in the trenches or behind the scenes this podcast is for anyone who values hard work determination and the stories that build the backbone of our workforce So grab your gloves your coffee or your clipboard It's time to get to work Welcome to another episode of the Built To Work podcast Today I am here with somebody that I consider a friend now after knowing her for a while Jennifer Betts Jennifer thank you so much for joining us today Thank you Collin It's been wonderful getting to know you over the past maybe year year or so 

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at this point Something Yeah it's- I know and so congratulations you're having fun Yes And congratulations- Yeah on your latest podcast I know this is not your first so- Yeah love to see the empire growing Thank you very much Yeah It's 

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it's been good to kind of get back into it I did a lot with the last business and starting to get into it with this one's kind of been fun again It's like okay now I remember- I remember how I did all this stuff So I took a hiatus but now it's back out there to- to grind out a little bit more so Exactly 

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well you obviously are all over social media You're all over LinkedIn Instagram preaching recycling the metals industry and you are a wealth of knowledge And as we've gotten to know each other it's just you know I've been impressed by how much you've known how many people you know you know your involvement in the industry 

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and as we started talking we discovered that we actually grew up like very close to each other Yes Went to like rival high schools basically 

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here in Kansas City area and now you're all the way in California right 

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Living the dream going out west I'm still here in the Kansas City area though so Yeah it's crazy I think when we first met and I learned that you were more or less down the street from where my parents still live it was kind of crazy to find out that full circle X number of years later- 

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that our paths would cross and yet never knew it growing up absolutely I don't think that I definitely didn't think I was gonna be in the metals industry I don't know about you Same Nope 

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and what's crazy is that I come from a family of engineers and I was the quote "black sheep," because I went into business I was not going to be an engineer I was not gonna go into metallurgy because my dad actually has a metallurgy degree Absolutely was not going to do that And so now I think he's having a little bit of a chuckle at what I do for a living now Yeah I'm-I'm sure I'm sure And that's funny 'cause I went into engineering in college and after unceremoniously getting asked to not work for a couple different places started my own business and now I'm in this industry So engineering and metals I guess there's just a connection that way so A little bit a little bit Now I'm doing the business thing too so I think that's the way to go 

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I completely agree I think there's a little bit of fun a little bit of stress but you get to take the knowledge that you've learned and create something out of it and be able to utilize your network utilize the tools and it's really fascinating to be able to do that and see something that you've created grow Yeah Yeah And so you've got your own company Magnar Metals 

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tell us about what Magnar does It is a digital marketing PR and business scouting firm So I specialize in essentially taking the past couple decades of my metals career and I help solve people's commercial problems It's been really fascinating having my network grow over the course of my career to essentially the full supply chain in the industry- 

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where the individuals and the companies that come across my desk range from scientists and professors at universities at the cutting edge of AI and metallurgy to documentary individuals that are trying to raise sunken ships off the East Coast and they don't have the connections to essentially recycle that ship but they also want to make sure that they can economically benefit from it- Yeah And so it's- it's just really quite fascinating what happens these days Yeah that's You are exposed to a lot of cool things So how did business degree Jennifer go from that end up to sunken ships and technical expertise Where Well how did that journey happen You know it's kinda interesting because your background in real estate is connected a little bit to my finance degree My finance degree in college from Indiana University go Hoosiers is actually 

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has a specialty in real estate I thought I was going into commercial real estate I thought I was going into flipping I thought I was going down that path and that did not happen Yeah I very much took a- a- a different turn The easiest answer is career fair Okay My senior year of college there was a line for a particular company that I was waiting for at a career fair and next door to that company at the career fair was the David J Joseph Company And there was a particular trader who more or less grabbed me out of that line and started talking to me and started telling me about what they did And at the time I thought "Well I'll use them as interview practice." 

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And so I started going through the whole process and the more and more I learned about what they did and the opportunity it dawned on me that all of my fellow graduates in the business school would be in cubicles They'd be working horrendous hours They'd probably be going to New York or Chicago or somewhere where it's on the train to and from I wouldn't be doing that All of a sudden I would be getting a company car an expense account a book of business and then I would be told "Go Go travel Go meet with people Go ex- explore and figure it out." And- That's awesome that seemed way more appealing than what my finance degree was really gearing me towards investment banking and and those types of- Oh yeah career paths I fully did not know what I agreed to- when I signed up with the David J Joseph Company I did not know I didn't know what scrap metal was I did not know really what steel mills were I'd never gone to one by that point Yeah So when I started at DJJ they weren't owned by Nucor then Okay I actually started as a non-ferrous trader So I bought and sold truckloads of aluminum cans copper- There you go stainless steel I had no idea that that's what I was doing But with the finance background I was hedging off of the LME the London Metal Exchange the CME Chicago Mercantile before it was bought 

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by the NYMEX back then And then eventually Nucor bought DJJ and that's really when my career shifted over towards the ferrous side of the industry And so that's how majority of my career's actually been on the steel side of things When I started managing raw material programs for steel mills when I shifted over to AK Steel that's when integrated facilities because Nucor's electric arc furnaces- 

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ferroalloys shifted in there at AK Steel as well And so that's kind of where a lot of my experiences come into play just by things happening throughout my career Just happened Totally unexpected Yes I did not know that I would learn this much about science and metallurgy as a finance major in college Well 

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I guess we never know really what's in store for us as we kinda go down that path 

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no Yeah The degrees get you in the door and have I really used that finance degree Mm maybe Maybe Maybe a little Yeah Maybe not so much So- And I think aside from getting like a degree in metallurgy like your dad or where I went to school in Rolla Missouri that's a big engineering school you can also get a know some sort of mining metallurgy degree or something like that I I never paid any attention to it right I wanted to design buildings right I wanted to build build buildings but yeah having having that education like gets you in the door We learn a little bit about it But this is like a very much hands-on on the job learning industry Like you're not gonna figure it out from a textbook absolutely not There's so many different grades of we'll call it scrap or recycled materials as we now call it- but when I started it was scrap Uh-huh You know there's different types of metals It's all different types of products every mill has its own type of specs specifications that go into the melt shop Every melt shop is different It there are standards that exist out there from a general sense but how do you convey to someone what the feeling of that heat feels like when the charge bucket drops you know all those tons into a furnace 

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Y- you you can't right You have to- Yeah go and experience these things Yeah It's yeah it's one of those things that's hands-on 

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you know I was very thankful in my education you know they did a lot of hands-on like very very practical engineering school to an extent 

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but one of the hands-on we got was going to 

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not metals We actually got to go to a wastewater treatment facility Do not recommend hands-on that sort of experience Not enjoyable 

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makes you appreciate 

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Yeah what you do for a living 

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though as well Yeah absolutely Yeah I'll take I'll take hot metal any day so Oh 

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so how long have you been doing Magnar So I started at Magnar back in 2016 Okay Back in 2016 for 4 years it was mainly focused on trading scrap metal It was mainly focused on essentially taking the previous decade of experience as essentially a mill buyer 

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And taking that knowledge and helping scrapyards renegotiate their contracts with the steel mills Oh really So I helped scrapyards renegotiate their monthly scrap contracts renegotiate their transportation contracts I had them take a look at essentially their commercial strategies Should they be going to their existing consumers Are there other opportunities It really was more of a strategy consulting company at that time versus today it's more of okay how do you build your network How do you build brand awareness In today's age what are your goals as a business and how do you use today's tools to achieve that 

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Because so much of what worked yesterday or what worked 5 years ago in our industry is not necessarily working anymore Okay So that's more of what's changed from the Magnar of you know 8 9 years ago to today 

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Okay So from the brand awareness and the marketing standpoint if you could give away some free information unpaid consulting what's the biggest thing that's changed and how people need to approach that brand awareness from 2020 pre-COVID to now The biggest thing pre-COVID to now and I say this from our industry the the metals industry- 

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the scrap industry is s- straight up just make yourself and your company known It sounds so simple but yet in our industry from a historical standpoint the thought process and it just was we wanted to be under the radar We didn't advertise We didn't really want people to know about our industry It was something that for historical reasons it did make sense People didn't know about the scrap industry 

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Right Yeah And that worked for generations It doesn't work anymore There's legislation that is written that doesn't make sense It goes against the actual intentions of the legislation because there's a lack of knowledge of what our industry actually does- 

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because it's been under the radar There is a lack of employees- 

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because people are not aware that this is a career that there are opportunities here There's also a misunderstanding of what recycling actually is again because there's been a lack of awareness So the simplest easiest free advice is just start marketing yourself in whatever way is authentic to you Is that posting photos of your business online Photos of you on travels for work online Is it writing a blog Is it producing a podcast Is it being a guest on a podcast 

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Is it just commenting on other people's posts within the industry- 

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just to start creating awareness Something to get people aware that our industry exists that you exist because you need an electronic footprint You need something Yeah Because that's how we communicate now.Okay That is some great free advice and and thank you for that And everybody will appreciate that And it is amazing how much that's changed And you said a couple things there that I kinda wanna unpack And the first one is first off the way you do stuff right Talking about legislation I love the content you put out 'cause you're always like "Hey how is this going to affect this?" Or "Hey this is what's going on with some legislation." Or recently it's been tariffs and and all sorts of stuff like that You're like "What are what are the impacts that's gonna have?" And I don't wanna open that can of worms 'cause I'm sure you have so much on that but it's it's great to see how that "Oh how is this gonna impact this or that?" Or you know who's getting bought and sold right You've been talking about the Nippon Steel deal no deal deal no deal saga that's going on Who knows what's going on 

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with that 

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so that's that that's great and I love I mean that's 

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Talking about being uniquely you I feel like you're the person in the metals industry that does that And obviously I don't know everybody in the metals industry but it's not that huge of a circle at the end of the day 

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especially if you kind of start consolidating past what I've for lack of a better term like a mom-and-pop size scrap yard Once you kinda get above that and the people that are actually producing content and talking about stuff on a high level there's there's you know There's a handful Yes exactly And what's interesting too is I am not the expert on everything in the industry But because I put myself out there the experts on individual areas in the industry find me And so that allows me to get connected with the people that have the answers Yeah And so I can learn from them And when a company or a consulting opportunity comes my way with questions I'm able to connect them with the people that have the answers Yes Because a lot of the times the people that are the experts that have the answers are not marketing themselves It's true So if we were out there a little bit more and showcase what we did and showed how we got hooked on the industry imagine how many more people would get interested in our industry- 

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if we showcased what we loved about it Yeah And I will say that different parts of the industry definitely make for very eye-catching photos on on any social media I mean I I saw you doing your top 10 posts of 2024 right And there was I mean just everything was really really cool 

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some other people we know they're always you know multiple photos a day of their trucks or their loads Those photos are super cool I mean everybody's putting out different content 

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you know the Michael Goldstein's always out there with the inflatable unicorn for all the two million cans and everything So 

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there's there's some really cool stuff that people are doing out there that is uniquely their brand voice So I can really appreciate that Yes And that- Uh-huh that's really what hits home is that it's about being your authentic self What makes you passionate about your industry your job That is what people will find interesting 

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Because even though you may not find it necessarily interesting that you think "Oh everybody must do this," or maybe you think it's because it's become normal air quote "normal" to you Yeah What we do no matter whether or not it's loading the trucks every day melting scrap every day even getting to travel to DC to go up to the Hill every day Right Yeah That's not normal to most people And so by sharing a little bit about what we do to the masses that is interesting to people Yeah And they will interact with it Yeah You know I mean 

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I had not been exposed to torching which is obviously what we do now until we had purchased this company And you know I see photos of the torching and we post them online and then I'm still like 

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that's really cool That's really cool." Right Fire sparks molten metal like all that's cool And I think other people probably appreciate that as well Absolutely I mean we even talked about torching before we started hitting record And we were geeking out about some of the technology that we were talking about Yeah we were totally nerding out Torching-wise and torching is something that happens in our industry every day but even new technology coming into- Yeah the the industry on something that should be normal- 

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makes it fun again for us Yeah I bet So imagine if somebody else that doesn't see something like that every day if they saw it 

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the other thing you'd said 

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previously was we didn't want people to know about the scrap industry And I feel like that's kind of there's a little maybe a little bit of and since I'm new to it you might have to correct me on this or anybody else that's out there is there a little a little bit of a of a checkered past with the with the scrap industry maybe with some ties or something like that before it got big There there is So we're ha- we're- we're- we're go- going to have to go back at this point probably 125-ish years And when there was a lot of essentially boxing out of available employment at that time where immigration coming into the United States there was we'll s- we'll call it what it is it was essentially racism in terms of who got what jobs And at that time there were certain positions in manufacturing in that world that Jews were not allowed- 

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to partake in So to make a living when they came to the States they started picking up all the scraps Whether that be the rags cloth rags outside of manufacturing facilities whether that's the metallic content outside the facilities And so they wanted to figure out how to make a living and they found out that those items had value if they collected them and figured out a way to add value to them by processing them into a way that then could go back to the consumers in a new form Okay And so there is this sentiment that occurred out of that time period 125 years ago where if nobody messed with us and nobody realized that because of that not so great start- 

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where they were boxed out of traditional employment that if they were able to build essentially these now legacy companies nobody would realize how successful they b- became from that 

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And if nobody really realized what they were doing over there 

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nobody would mess with them from a legislative situation nobody would really mess with them from 

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a community standpoint They would just be able to keep to themselves be able to run their businesses and just everybody would be happy over there happy over here And that worked for many decades I mean it they were able to work with manufacturers pick up their scraps process it return it Everybody was great Until things started to turn a little bit where then you started getting some of the rise of the metal prices 

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And then you started having copper theft And then you started having some catalytic converter theft Yeah And then you started having some other not-so-great events that had Events that were outside of their control where legislation had good intentions to try and reduce those criminal activities- Yeah but it also had negative effects on their business But because they had been under the radar for so long they hadn't established those community relationships they hadn't established those relationships with lawmakers And so there was this lack of education- Yeah within the community of how they were benefiting and making sure that the infrastructure and the manufacturing in the United States was being supported I mean just for for reference today we're flash-forwarding Today the United States manufacturing industry 40% of the raw materials that they use made from recycled materials Yeah That's amazing to me Yeah And it's amazing to think aboutYou know we think of recycling largely when I think of recycling most people do they're taking their blue bin out to the curb 

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Or you know I live in the country so we don't have a blue bin I if they're still that color maybe they're green now I don't I don't know 

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but you know that's that's what they think of recycling 

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And while there is so much that's done through that I think that people that aren't involved in the industry don't understand the scale of just the industrial recycling that goes on right Like on the torching side of things what do you do when you have a an excavator that's dead right That needs to be recycled You can't just it just doesn't melt itself right It has to be cut into pieces so that it can be melted and and you know the manufacturers then that are you know have skeleton plate after they've stamped or cut everything out Where does that all go I mean the industrial scale produces so much volume that the person recycling their their glass bottles and their and their aluminum cans doesn't even understand is out there N- not at all One of the the figures that I love to to throw out there for people is you think about the number every year particularly for the United States of how many cars we sell 

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And I haven't looked at what 2024 ended up being but usually in the past few years it's been anywhere from 13 15 million cars a year we've been selling Haven't haven't been that great I don't think we've gotten back up to pre-COVID levels But you know what we do do every year 17 million cars are shredded and put back- 17 1000000 into furnaces in the United States 17 million cars We don't even sell the same amount of cars we shred in the United States that we sell and make Well that just brings up so many questions I have and is are we running low on our auto supply or do we have this stockpile of junk cars that are getting shredded now Now it's just you know- Yeah they- it's like housing inventory right They're or they're not selling them or building them as fast as they're needing them so Well they 

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I'm sure some people have probably driven by a few fields in their day and seen some cars with grass growing up through them Yeah Oh yeah So I know I know some of those fields Yes Yeah Absolutely So where would those cars go if we didn't actually use them Yeah no I I have no idea You know it's funny it wasn't until after I'd bought this business that the first time I ever went to 

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a scrapyard as a customer So I and because I you know I never had the need but now I live in the country and over the last ten years of living at this house and the farm I started accumulating you know some metal here some metal there and I was like we built a new barn so we tore down the old one So I had like uncovered all my stuff I was like "Okay I gotta do something with this." And so me and my son we loaded up our trailer and took it there to the one that's yeah 10 minutes 15 minutes from my house and 

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it was a really cool experience to do it from the customer side You know now I bring in I brought in 1,000 pounds or whatever it was 

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it wasn't a ton 1500 pounds maybe but it was still cool to go through that side say "Okay this is I know what it's like on the inside This is what it's like coming from the outside-" 

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to experience that." And that most people most people have never been to a scrapyard because- Yeah why would they need to The residential recycling programs are out there and so people think "Oh I'll just put it into the bin." Yeah And I have to I have to comment on this because the MRFs the material recovery facilities the blue bin if you will are honestly in my opinion a big reason why people think recycling is a scam in the United States Okay And it's because there is no unified federal standard for MRFs So the MRF that could be nearest to you if you had- Yeah a residential recycling program - the the one that could be in your neighborhood and I could be the the city next door because you know you're in the Kansas City metro and State Line Road- Yeah is obviously- Yeah a a good marker for this They could have 2 completely different MRFs Yeah One could be the latest greatest AI unbelievable one that could take trash bags plastic trash bags full of glass plastic metal aluminum cans the whole 9 yards and be able to actually process that trash bag full of all those recyclable items 

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And then literally across the State Line Road- could be another MRF that when that same trash bag full of recyclable items comes across it can't handle it and that trash bag gets shoved off into the landfill pile And so people have this misconception that "Oh well then recycling must be a scam because then it's just gonna wind up in the landfill anyway." It it's not going to wind up in the landfill because it's quote "Recycling is a scam." It's gonna wind up because we don't have the infrastructure that's standardized to be able to handle everything the way that people put into the bins Yeah That's true That's true 

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yeah I I hadn't thought about that And honestly at points in time I had thought about those 2 bins too as like "Man I think it all just goes to the same landfill." Yeah Yeah It's no it's it's it's a common thought I- Yeah I was recently asked to speak about recycling to essentially an oil and gas conference 

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Rough crowd okay I'm sure it was I'm sure it was Rough crowd Yeah And I can understand the industrial recycling right 'Cause that's what I'm in And I can understand okay great you know Warrior AutoShredders we have guys that pick after AutoShredders right 

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So they're handpicking any of the last things to make sure we have a pure product Then we also cut stuff And regardless all this stuff is we know it is going to get remelted It's not going to- Yes a landfill So that's that's the part of the recycling that I'm like "I can wrap my mind around this one," 'cause we see it we touch it it's part of what we do on a daily basis But putting stuff in the blue bin and then the blue bin disappears is that's good It's it's 

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it just there's a lot of questions 'cause you never know Exactly You mentioned Nippon earlier 

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For those that may not be aware that's listening to it Nippon is a Japanese-based steel company They're actually the 4thlargest steel company in the world So pretty huge Like they are very technologically advanced very fascinating company But obviously from some historical perspectives you know Japan versus us 

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there's some history there They wanted to buy the United States Steel Corporation which is the third-largest steel corp- steel company in the United States And you alluded to it will they won't they will they won't they Both sides of the aisle don't really want that to happen But what's interesting about that both sides of the aisle have s- cited national security as the reason why they do not want Nippon Steel a Japanese-based company to purchase the third-largest steel company And I find that interesting because they're citing national security which implies that we would need to make steel alloys for the defense department right 

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But here's the thing We rely as a country the United States almost 100% on magnesium imports Okay Magnesium which by the way you can look this up on the United States Geological Society USGS they do 

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about every 2 to 4 years a economic and national sec- security study 

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of the minerals that are critical to our supply chains There's 50 now by the way So Oh great Yeah not great 

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4 years ago it was 35 so we're not doing great We increased it by 15 in the past 4 years So magnesium is one of them And magnesium goes into steel alloys- 

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to make defense products And we're almost exclusively reliant on that for for imports You know what's in aluminum cans Just gonna guess magnesium Correct The amount of magnesium albeit small in aluminum cans but the amount of magnesium that's in aluminum cans and just the aluminum cans that we send to the landfills every single year in the United States if we captured those aluminum cans that would eliminate our dependence on imports as a country Now see that's the narrative that we need I would never have known that Nobody else would ever know that So the whole national security thing it doesn't matter if Nippon buys this or or not right Like- 

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I shouldn't say us US Steel Corp right It doe- it doesn't matter because if we can't get the magnesium- Yeah we still can't make the the the defense steel alloys Yeah Because we're literally throwing our defense abilities into the landfills.Yeah those things don't get talked about No I mean and I and now I see coming full circle why you advocate so much for and educate so much on social media Because if I mean you you should just do a whole a whole talking point on that You probably have But that's you know Man now I'm gonna go dig every aluminum can I've thrown in the trash can out and and take it to to to the Department of Defense or something I don't know Right Well there is actually a bill going through Congress currently It is S351 Okay That is backed by the Department of Defense Okay It is for additional funding it's for grants for adding additional MRFs material recovery facilities- Okay to target specifically the recovery of critical minerals necessary for the Department of Defense They're well aware we have a problem Yeah Well aware But they're not advertising it They're not doing that Oh The "Why aren't they advertising it?" then becomes a bigger question but who knows Right Do they not want people to know But I mean they're publishing the list so everybody already knows anyway But I mean who knows about the list Unless y- you're a metallurgist or Yeah maybe a metal geek like the Marvelous Mrs Metals 

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Would you necessarily know that the list exists I would never have known the list exists I figured lithium was probably on that list because of all the car batteries but then we just discovered it in Arkansas Yes So I think we're good on lithium now I don't know Yes Which by the way all of what we're talking about with Greenland with Ukraine with 

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even you know some of the other countries' raw material deals we are self-sufficient in all of those minerals from an urban mining standpoint Oh yeah We have all of our needs if we actually urban mine our existing products 

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When re-mine the landfills picked up the trash- 

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recycle better that sort of thing Yeah Yeah Like literally the the car batteries the 

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tool batteries I love the the 1 you know the cordless tool batteries that we have now It's fantastic 

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Those have lithium in them Oh yeah Cobalt nickel all of those Everything we need Everything we need And just then the processing becomes the real booger It does Or is that a business opportunity I think it is a business opportunity as long as it doesn't burn the buildings down so 

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yes Well and and on that note please don't put those in the trash That's how fires start Oh yeah No please don't don't ever put your lithium ion batteries in trash 'cause if they go through a shredder or they get punctured they explode and it burns buildings down Agreed And 

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that includes musical greeting cards Really Think about it How does the m- musical greeting card play I I I I just I mean it has a battery I hadn't thought about what type of battery though It's got a lithium battery in it 

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A little one but it's got a little battery in it And most people would think it's paper and they put it in the trash or the recycling And then it goes to the shredder But they need to they need Yes exactly 

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They need to pull that out and 

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maybe you know based on your location you could walk down the street to 

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a certain company and let them know they need to put a giant warning label on those products- Yeah that they're putting out It contains lithium yeah I 

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I know that 

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you know I know of one that that was publicized 

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one company had a huge fire because of a lithium ion battery last year I'm sure there was many 

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then when we were at a a conference last year as well some guy was up there talking about his shredder operation and they had had a couple of small fires 'cause the guy the supplier maybe it was a MRF I don't know- 

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wasn't cleaning the lithium ion batteries out They were And they got a bad load in and burned the whole place down And you can't stop those fires once they get going No you can't And that's a good example of when policy and legislators are intending for positive change but are putting undue burden on the people that are recycling and handling products that were never designed to be recycled So the original producers of the material are not being held responsible for then how they're winding back up in the supply chain and causing- Yeah damage Yeah I know there's a lot of efforts right now going into the car batteries especially right With the hybrids and the all- and the EVs and how do we how do we effectively recycle those 

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And I know there's probably a lot of money being spent on figuring out a process to do that Oh you should check out some of the insane amount of money that is being dropped into the EV hybrid battery recycling space There are several I'll call them startups That is an insane term for the billions of dollars these companies have gotten 

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That from a capacity standpoint they are nowhere near going to be able to handle what's coming down the pipeline Yeah So again there's opportunities there Yeah To- to be able to handle it 

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it- it's- it's crazy It's crazy It's a hard one to wrap your mind around It- it really is 

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yeah the future is upon us now and it's- it's fun and it's exciting to see that things in this industry are changing and it's not just get metal melt metal anymore And there's so many opportunities out there 

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within the recycled materials space You know from the batteries to urban mining to you know fields full of cars 

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yes There's so much to do right now so 

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There- there really is I feel like there's been a lot of change in this industry 

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I know coming from the big construction space previously 

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there's parts of this industry that have been behind other industries right just 'cause it kind of laid low for so long 

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And 1 one thing that I'm really thankful to see is such a big push for safety recently 

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PPE safety programs that's really big for us We do a lot of training We do a lot of We make sure everybody's got the right PPE We do blood tests on our guys that are exposed to fumes regularly respirator fit tests Stuff that wasn't even happening as- as recent as like 20 years ago around the torches and stuff like that People just smoke sucking those fumes in and But it's catching up The technology's catching up The processes are catching up It's 

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it's really cool and it's 

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it's a neat time to be a part of the industry 'cause it's changing and growing a lot It- it really is The safety aspect of it is crucial The country's largest steel mill company I mean that's their main focus They've shut down their entire system before if they've had an accident And it's because they take it serious to figure out what happened what went wrong and how to never have that happen again We have to because we're dealing with molten metal We're dealing with thousands and thousands of tons at a time We're dealing with flames sharp things I- I mean every There is nothing 

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aside from maybe recycling paper there is nothing delicate about the 

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recycled materials industry It's- it's shredders I mean a shredder that can eat a car you don't want to accidentally fall in that 

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no And you know somewhat on that note it's a personal theory of mine but it is why I think George Lucas has some sort of relation to the metals industry because of everything that you just described It pretty much is every Star Wars plot 

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in every It's from the scrappers It's from the continuous casters I mean that is a lightsaber if you've ever seen one right Like it's cutting off hands Like I mean it is a safety y- like it- it's Come on Yeah Shredders the compactor it's a mold 

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yeah 

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no I grew up with a trash compactor in my house like a little tiny a residential size one so that's always where my mind went 

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but I'll have to entertain that theory a little bit more but Yeah Darth Vader goes from- If I re-watch the whole series through that mind you know You're- you're not gonna unsee- you're- you can't unsee it 

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I mean Darth Vader goes from planet to planet to planet mining for the Death Star Yeah Man Just saying You- Just saying It's- it's there You're- It's there It's- it's- it's there Mandalorians literally- Yeah Beskar steel I think that's Beskar That's- that's the best right Right It's the best It's the only option Obviously Clearly I've got some of it Yeah So So 

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all right Well we fully digress now So 

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Jennifer this has been wonderful Thank you so much I always love chatting with you And your knowledge is- is so immense Thank you for sharing with everybody and 

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continue to rock and roll and let everybody know the importance of the recycled materials industry Thank you Collin It's been really wonderful getting to talk to you today catch up with you and I wish you continued success on your latest adventure and maybe you know onto 

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the latest and greatest MRF perhaps 

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in your next- Oh yes adventure Definitely looking for the MRFs Yes All right Thank you Jennifer Thank you