CHESAPEAKE, Va. — Sims Metal held its ribbon-cutting ceremony in Chesapeake on Monday.
The ceremony celebrated the company's $20 million investment in the city's recycling facility.
The new technology aims to create a safer recycling process that is also friendlier to the environment. Sims said the recycling process uses about 80 to 90% less energy and less CO2 than producing iron ore from scratch.
Sims Metal operates five facilities in Virginia. The company recycles about 500,000 tons of material per year. In perspective, 500,000 tons is equivalent to 3,256 Statues of Liberty.
The company takes old pieces of steel that normally find their way into landfills, recycles them, and gets them ready to be used by a steel mill to create new steel.
Sims said it stops metal from going to landfills and reduces CO2 in the atmosphere.