Measured by volume, scrap iron and steel remain the kings of the mountain for metals recyclers. But measured by profits, there are times when the nonferrous business is the segment that alert scrap recyclers pay close attention to when managing their operations.

While scrap dealers can rightfully consider 2003 and 2004 as terrific years to be in the scrap iron business, they would also have to acknowledge that the prices they received for their copper scrap were memorable, as well.

Increasingly, traditional ferrous scrap processors have abandoned any previous notions they may have had to treat the nonferrous side of the business as a secondary pursuit. Part of this reason could also be that a number of operational and bottom-line trends have helped to make it increasingly difficult for scrap companies to consider themselves stand-alone ferrous scrap processors.

CHANGING TIMES. Throughout the last several decades, several trends have worked to bring ferrous and nonferrous scrap operations closer together as two parallel parts of the same operating unit.

* In manufacturing, an increasing number of appliances and machines are made with a combination of ferrous and nonferrous metals fastened together in a variety of ways. In the automotive sector, aluminum producers jumped on the "lightweighting" bandwagon by selling the merits of aluminum as a less weighty substitute for steel or iron for a number of components.

* In processing, the shift toward shredding plants has seen traditional ferrous scrap processors take in appliances and auto bodies, regardless of the nonferrous content. In fact, the deployment of downstream shredder sorting systems has made the recovery of the nonferrous portion an important profit center for traditional scrap iron dealers.

* Also on the processing side, a drive toward efficiency and controlling labor costs has meant that scrap companies are increasingly unwilling to engage in manual sorting or disassembly to separate ferrous metals from nonferrous metals prior to size reduction.

* On the buy side, obsolete scrap has become an increasingly larger percentage of the overall scrap stream. In the United States, many scrap processors have seen their manufacturing clients close down, move offshore or become markedly more efficient (thereby reducing the amount of scrap generated). This has helped push the trend toward more shredding plants to make sure processors get in on the obsolete scrap stream, which continues to flow in every region of the country.

The popularity of the auto shredder is a common theme in these trends, and it--more than anything--has helped turn ferrous processors into dual ferrous and nonferrous firms.

The types of nonferrous scrap that a recycler can deal in are enough to fill a book (the fattest section of the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries Inc.'s "Scrap Specifications Circular," as a matter of fact), and many of these metals show up in the post-shredder stream.

A look at the headquarters addresses of the companies on the 20 Largest Nonferrous Scrap Processors List shows a preponderance of Northeast and Great Lakes region addresses, with only two companies from the booming Southern states listed.

Dallas-based Commercial Metals Co. and New Orleans-based Southern Scrap Recycling may be the only two companies based in the South that made the list, but they by no means are the only companies with a presence in the South.

OmniSource Corp. has a plant in Decatur, Ala., as well as a string of facilities in the Southeast operating as part of its Carolina Recycling Group affiliate. Metal Management Inc. operates yards in Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas, while PSC Metals Inc. has several locations in Tennessee.

Much of the scrap handled by the David J. Joseph Co. runs through its River Metals Recycling facilities in Kentucky or its Trademark Metals Recycling facilities in Florida.

Additionally, Ferrous Processing & Trading (parent company of SLC Recycling) has a facility in Miami; Simsmetal America has established operations in Virginia, partly to supply the Chaparral Steel mini-mill in that state; and both of Global Recycling Inc.'s physical yards are in the Southeast (in Arkansas and North Carolina).

METHODOLOGY. For purposes of compiling this list, we asked recyclers to concentrate on the most commonly traded nonferrous metals--aluminum and copper. Certainly, there are other metals and alloys to consider, and some may provide a topic for a future list.

Whether to add in stainless steel processing was another question. This iron-bearing metal with a price pegged to its nonferrous alloying elements has a habit of raising classification questions. (See "Straddling the Stainless Fence," below.)

Ultimately, focusing on aluminum, copper and the nonferrous portions of the auto shredder stream provided a yardstick we hoped could be applied evenly.

As with all "20 Largest" lists that we compile, we received replies from some but not all of the companies we contacted. In some cases, we placed companies on the list based on estimates from industry sources, while in other cases we refrained from doing so.