Imported car body parts reach North American assembly and logistics operations on racks built from structural steel. The racks protect hoods, doors, fenders and side members in transit and let the load be handled through distribution centers. They do their job well, and then they reach the end of their service life.

At that point they become one of the more awkward materials in the yard. End-of-life transport racks have an open geometry, they are rigid, and they come in a range of sizes that never stack neatly. The result is bulky steel scrap with very low density, taking up far more space than its tonnage justifies and costing time every time it is moved. Processing it usually means cutting or breaking racks down by hand before anything else can happen.

ERS approaches steel transport rack recycling by removing that manual step. The MIZAR baler, which ERS supplies in North America as a partner of TAURUS, takes this material directly. Its compression chamber measures 1000 x 600 mm, roughly 39 by 24 inches, and is built in a tank shape with two flat swinging lids hinged to each other. The lower lid is hinged longitudinally to the vertical wall of the chamber, which grips awkward material more steadily and holds it in place through the cycle instead of letting it spring back. Every inner surface in contact with the scrap is thick wear-resistant steel plate.

Compression force is what makes the difference on rigid material. The MIZAR can be specified with three cylinders per lid, giving each lid a maximum of 300 tons, matched by the feed cylinder. That is enough to fold and consolidate structural steel scrap in one pass rather than working it repeatedly.

The result shows up immediately in the yard. Initial volume drops by 70 to 80 percent, and loose, snagging rack sections become compact, regular bales that stack and travel. Scrap volume reduction on that scale changes the logistics as much as the storage: fewer trips, fuller loads, and a consistent product going out to the mill. Fast cycle times mean large quantities move in a short working day.

If steel racks, frames or other rigid structural scrap are piling up faster than you can move them, talk to ERS about what a line built around that specific material would look like.

ERS has put another metals recovery system into production in the United States, with a pre-shredder integrated at the head of the line to feed the recovery equipment behind it.

ERS designs and builds recycling systems. We engineer the line, we decide what equipment belongs at each stage of it, we build it, and we stand behind how it performs when your material runs through it. We will supply a single machine when a plant needs a replacement, but the system is the work. On this project the pre-shredder is one element inside a system, specified for the duty and sized to feed the line consistently.

The equipment at this stage of the line is a Guidetti PMG-H 1600, and the line is now running radiators in steady production. Mixed copper, aluminum and steel in a light, awkward bundle is exactly the material that separates a scrap processing system that runs all day from one that stalls every twenty minutes. That is a design problem before it is anything else, and it is the problem ERS exists to solve.

ERS will be at Southeast ReMA 2026 in Birmingham, Alabama, September 28 to 30, Booth 19. Come talk to us about the system your recovery line needs, not just the machine.

Engineered Recycling Systems is exhibiting at Scrap Expo 2026, September 9-10 at the Kentucky Exposition Center in Louisville, Kentucky. Scrap Expo is one of the industry's few live demonstration events, where equipment actually runs on the floor instead of sitting behind a sign.

Find ERS at Booth 317 to talk through wire chopping, granulation, and separation systems built to recover clean copper from insulated wire, cable, and mixed scrap, along with the rest of the ERS metals recycling equipment line.

Representatives from TAURUS will be on-site as well. ERS partners with TAURUS in the U.S. for shear balers and mobile scrap processing equipment, and visitors will have a chance to see the full range of TAURUS equipment ERS supports across North America.

Stop by Booth 317 to see the equipment and talk through what a system built around your material stream could look like.