Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
Mike Rowe of the Discovery Channel program Dirty Jobs had so much fun visiting the crew at Cash’s Scrap Metal & Iron (cashmet.com) in 2007, he came back the next year to film a second episode. While using a blowtorch to help demolish a retired barge on the banks of the Mississippi River, Rowe hung out with John Engelmohr, the “non-ferrous manager” at Cash’s, where 350 million pounds of cans, bullet casings, bridges, and even chunks of the old Busch Stadium are repurposed each year.
• I had a small part in the second Dirty Jobs filmed at Cash’s; I was managing the river terminal and the film crew. The river can be very difficult. When we filmed Dirty Jobs, we had high water. It’s a 45-, 50-foot variance from low water, and it makes life very interesting. It was actually a dangerous time. We were afraid the barge would float away, because the water was coming up so quickly at the time. And because of the cameras, we were going to have to do things differently than we normally would have. A few days before the taping, I was saying we shouldn’t do it because the water was getting so high. My boss told me to go ahead as long as it was safe, and it worked out in the end.
• During the Dirty Jobs taping, the thing that really got my attention was how hard the cameramen worked. They were on their feet throughout the day in positions that made my neck hurt just looking at them. Mike Rowe was very personable and inquisitive, just like you see on the program. He’s very fun and quick-witted. He wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty. They had to shoot things over and over again, too.
• We process several hundred different metals. My favorite metal is probably stainless steel. The manufacturers can do some pretty neat things with materials these days.
• There is a lot of crime related to scrap metal. But our managers are trained. For instance, if they see a guy that pulls up in a pickup truck and is bringing thick-gauge industrial copper wire, it’s a little fishy. A guy trying to sell you titanium chips from right off his truck, you have to wonder where he’s manufacturing aircraft. [Laughs.] You inspect the metal and ask them questions. We had a guy come in with some stolen barge fasteners. I said to my buddy, “Stall that guy! I don’t think he really got those from his dad’s business.” I called some suppliers, and we were able to catch the guy with a couple thousand dollars worth of stolen merchandise.
• We definitely get some characters here. It could be the local scrap dealer who sells smaller amounts to us. We have the Sanford and Son types with the sign written on the side of their pickup that says, “We’ll Haul Anything.” We get the guys hanging around the alleys finding stuff there. We get people doing a weekend project, and small tool shops. Then we get some of the big three auto manufacturers in the area, and very large-scale industrial businesses.
• Our scrap comes in all shapes and sizes, just like our customers.
• There are despicable things people try to do, like fill cans with water and freeze them so they’ll get paid more for the heavier weight. They’ll do the same thing by putting cement blocks in a washing machine. Some people have even tried standing on the scale.
• The most valuable metals to scrap are the nickel-based alloys, like nickel-titanium.
• We get a lot of can collectors. That’s their bread and butter. There was one time when I was working the retail dock and I thought how fortunate I was for everything I have, but the thing is, a lot of the can collectors are always smiling.
• The heavy equipment you need to be very careful with, but it is a lot of fun to work with, especially the barge-breaking equipment at the river terminal. When you use a grapple crane, you feel like Sigourney Weaver inside a robot, like that scene from Aliens. They become an extension of you. That's when I find the most relaxation and peace at work is when I get to operate that equipment.
• One of the best things about being in the scrap industry is you could be talking to a boy scout troop about $3 worth of cans one minute and some big company about $3 million worth of scrap the next. Your day is never the same.
• We do find some strange things in the scrap. We once found a kitten. I think one of the guys took it home. One time we brought in a barge that had a forest growing from the sand inside it. We called it “Sherwood Forest.” There was a beaver in the middle of it. We’ve gotten whole metal coffins in the scrap. We had a locker with some evidence from one of the local police departments scrapped one time. We alerted them, and they came and retrieved it. They were embarrassed.
• We have gotten radioactive metal. We have radiation detectors on the scale.
• We helped clear away the scrap from the demolition of the old Busch Stadium. That was a fun project for us. We were running 30 to 40 trucks a day with an average turnaround time of 15 minutes per truck. At one point, we unloaded these big, three-foot trolleys in the yard, and we weren’t sure what they were. It turned out they were the old dollies that they would slide on tracks to move the bleachers on and off of the field for the baseball versus the football games. That was a neat find. We had people coming to the yard at night to try to steal concrete from the stadium as a souvenir.
• When I’m at work, I’m supposed to carry a magnet wherever I go. The magnet sticks to any iron-based metal, including most steel, and you can tell the different types of steel, brasses, and bronzes by how strongly the magnet sticks to them. Aluminum and copper won't draw a magnet at all. We process several hundred different metals.
• Every yard I’ve been at, I’ve had aspiring artists stop by wanting to buy materials or to visit the yard and take photos. The scrap can look artsy.
• The best days at the yard are the days when we have good weather, because we’re always outside, and when the material that comes in is what it’s supposed to be, and when we ship a lot of material out.
• I don’t like heavy metal music too much.
• Scrap gets in your blood. The folks that we work with day in, day out are a different breed.
