Trenton Forging Recycles Enough Steel to Produce Nearly 2 Million of Its Own Forgings Annually

What if we told you that, on average, 650,000 lbs. of byproduct steel scrap is produced at Trenton Forging Company each month – equating to around more than 7,800,000 pounds of recycling materials each year?

You may be thinking, “This number is preposterous, unacceptable, and they need to be held responsible for the waste they create!”
Good news! WE ARE.

In addition to recycling all of our used oils, lubricants, paper, cardboard and wastewater in a responsible manner, every bit of steel scrap we produce is transformed into the same raw material we produce our forgings from, again and again. In essence, we created and now utilize a closed-loop recycling process.

To pull back the curtain a bit, at Trenton Forging we produce approximately 2.5 million forgings per year. From each forging, by way of the closed impression die forging process, an average of 36% of the raw material’s original mass becomes scrap, simply by trimming them from its “flashing” or “platter”. If you aren’t familiar with the forging process, you can visualize this process like using a cookie cutter: the pieces of cookie you bake, versus the dough that remains unused outside of the cookie cutter. To learn more about how we forge, click here: https://trentonforging.com/forging/

This flash is then transported to local steel “mini mills” for recycling. During this process, the material is smelted, poured and drawn back into the same billet material that Trenton Forging purchases back for reuse.

Now that we know how it works, let’s take a look at the math. With an average gross weight (per part) of approximately 4 pounds; and with a recycled 7,800,000 pounds of steel scrap per year, we can conclude that Trenton Forging successfully produces 1,950,000 forged parts from the materials we recycled.

Almost 2 million parts annually are produced from what would normally have been waste!

On an even deeper level, it’s much more efficient and environmentally friendly to process scrap than to make new ‘virgin’ steel. In fact, the recycled steel we purchase lowers our raw material carbon footprint by 58%.

Furthermore, by producing product from recycled material, TFC saves the local steel mills an average energy consumption of 138,000,000,000 (yes, 138 billion) BTU’s required to produce the steel each year.

We are constantly looking to improve our processes within the plant to not only become more efficient for our customers, but to take care of our beautiful planet as well.

Trenton Forging
Dane Moxlow is a lifelong forging industry stalwart and the Vice President of Trenton Forging Company – a 3rd Generation, American family-owned impression-die forging producer based in Trenton, Michigan. He currently serves on the North American Forging Industry Association’s (forging.org) Defense Technical Committee and Public Policy Committee. Dane earned his Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of Tennessee with a focus in marketing and international business. Dane’s industry focus is based in manufacturing cell and process optimization, technology integration, equipment maintenance, and facilities expansions.