A glimpse into the world of North Fork metal hunters
It’s 6 a.m. on a cold winter morning in Greenport. While most of the village sleeps, Stephanie Horton is on the move in her purple ’96 Chevy Suburban.
Her mission? Metal.
Ms. Horton, 23, is a scrapper. She spends her days cruising side roads, back alleys and main drags in search of scrap metal, her primary source of income.
She bundles up in a jacket featuring a camouflage pattern matching the fabric that lines the worn seats of her aging truck. Armed with convenience store coffee, hitting the streets early is a common occurrence for Ms. Horton. After all, the early bird gets the worm.
Unlike a 9-to-5 job, Ms. Horton doesn’t punch a time clock or collect a paycheck each week. She gets paid by the truckload. But she doesn’t waste the nearly $30 in fuel it takes to get paid by driving to and from Crown Recycling Facility without filling her 20-foot trailer to the brim with scrap metal. Then, and only then, will she cash in.
“I wake up early, especially when I know businesses are throwing things out,” she said. “You have to learn those schedules because some days there is just regular garbage pick-up, but other days people can throw out whatever they want, like wood or metal.”
Ms. Horton is hardly alone in her quest for metal. Nationwide, the scrap recycling industry benefits more than 460,000 people in the form of payrolled employees or independent scrappers like Ms. Horton, according to a recent study by the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries. In fact, the total economic activity generated by scrap recycling in the United States is $87.4 billion annually. Those figures, the study states, rival those of the nation’s cosmetics, milk and aircraft engine industries.
Greenport is a testament to the industry’s popularity. Nearly a dozen people regularly scrap in the areas in and around the village alone, Ms. Horton said.
One of the reasons the hamlet is so sought-after by scrappers is because there are numerous businesses and residential homes located within close proximity of each other, she said.
“We are all civil to each other, but there is a lot of competition,” Ms. Horton said. “There are so many scrappers in Greenport I think people know that if they throw something out, someone will pick it up in 20 minutes.
“If I go to a site and I see metal, I’ll ask about it,” she continued. “Sometimes the owner will tell me, ‘Oh, so-and-so is already picking it up.’ That’s frustrating.”
Committing garbage pickup days to memory and, more importantly, arriving before sanitation workers do is essential to gaining an advantage over fellow scrappers, Ms. Horton said.
On a recent ride with a Suffolk Times reporter, Ms. Horton left her trailer at home; the back of her Suburban would cut it for the morning rounds. She wasn’t expecting to come across any big items, since winter is a traditionally slow time of year for scrapping.
First, Ms. Horton checked her usual spots in Greenport Village: the trash receptacles at Preston’s on Main Street and the dumpsters behind Front Street businesses.
As anticipated, she came up empty.
The ride was far from over, though, as checking the dumpsters of local businesses marks just the beginning of Ms. Horton’s treasure hunts. She slowly traveled along residential streets, her eyes peeled as country music played on the radio. Should the need arise, Ms. Horton even keeps a pair of binoculars in her glove compartment to better observe objects in the distance.
She took her time rolling down side roads to inspect homes that may have put a microwave or refrigerator on the curb overnight. She takes special notice of houses undergoing renovation.
“People usually throw out old stoves, washing machines, a lot of stuff,” Ms. Horton said as she jumped onto a dumpster outside a house that was being remodeled. “I’ve already talked to these people about going through their dumpster.”
While some scrappers take what they can from dumpsters without permission, Ms. Horton said she tries to protect the reputations of the scrapper community at large by asking them. She believes better communication with residents and business owners pays off in the long-run; cultivating sources helps Ms. Horton more easily find scrap metal throughout the year, she said. This is especially critical during the winter.
Much of Ms. Horton’s route consists of restaurants and construction sites where owners are happy to have her haul away their rubbish for free. She also receives tips from friends and residents who have spotted metal up for grabs.
And the streets aren’t the only place to find metal: Ms. Horton also combs through websites like Facebook and Craigslist for free items.
“People think of a scrapper as a low-life or someone who is scrounging up garbage, but really they would be fooled,” Ms. Horton said.
In actuality, scrappers come from a wide assortment of backgrounds, said Pete Escabi, manager of Gershow Recycling in Riverhead. Several tons of scrap metal are brought to the site annually.
“We have people from all walks of life come through here,” Mr. Escabi said. “Everybody from professionals to your everyday kind of people — electricians, plumbers, contractors or homeowners.”
After scrap is weighed at the Riverhead location, trucks transport the materials to Gershow’s main location in Medford. There, the metal is shredded and compressed into blocks before being sold to manufacturers across the country, Mr. Escabi said.
Given the ever-changing price of metal and the fact that there is no guarantee of success, the majority of scrappers do it to supplement other forms of income.
“The price of metals goes up and down all the time, so you are not always making the same amount of money,” said Andrew Olsen of Riverhead, an occasional scrapper who added that seeing a young female scrapper around town is atypical.
“I have seen woman scrapping but they are usually older and with their spouses,” Mr. Olsen said.
On occasion, Ms. Horton uses her skills as a nail technician to make ends meet in the winter. However, she relies entirely on scrapping to pay for gas, bills and other essentials.
“I try not to get too concerned about money,” she said. “I love what I do. I would call it my dream job, but unfortunately it is not a fixed income. That is the hardest part.”
After graduating from Greenport High School, Ms. Horton worked in retail, which she said wasn’t the right fit for her. She also cares for her grandparents, making it difficult to hold a job that doesn’t offer flexible hours. So she opted for what she describes as her “full-time, part-time job” in scrapping. This, she said, allows her to care for her family and make enough money to live independently.
“The main reason why I don’t have a ‘real job’ is because my family depends on me a lot,” she said. “Looking around [for metal] is just an everyday part of that. Sometimes I’ll be doing errands for my family and get distracted and start scrapping.”
Ms. Horton got her start in the field at just 16, after she cashed in on junk metal she had helped her grandmother clean up from the family’s yard, From then on, she said, discarded metal caught her eye.
“I just started picking stuff up when I saw it to make a couple extra bucks,” she said. “Then it just grew.”
Ms. Horton knows her paycheck is coming when her trailer is finally full. Depending on the season, she makes the trip to Crown Recycling two to three times a month. Each trailer of metal can be worth anywhere from $200 to $700, she said.
“When I pull out of my driveway I can tell by the weight of the trailer that it’s going to be a good day,” she said. “I don’t own my own business or anything, but I got a 20-foot trailer and I make my money.”