Wise Metals Opens New Facility – State and Local Leaders Gather

by Steve Wiggins
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MUSCLE SHOALS – Wise Metals Group today cut the ribbon on its latest expansion facility in The Shoals. Alabama Governor Robert Bentley, Congressman Mo Brooks, Retirement Systems of Alabama (RSA) C.E.O. David Bronner, Mayors of Florence, Tuscumbia and Muscle Shoals, and numerous city council members, state representatives, and business leaders attended the ceremony.

The new facility, named “Element 13”, is the largest single used beverage can melting facility in the world.

According to David D’Addario, Wise’s Chairman of the Board, the new facility contains a furnace that will process 250,000 pounds of aluminum, a delaquering kiln and a can shredding system that will shred 80,000 pounds an hour. It increases Wise’s overall melting capacity by 27% and used beverage can melting capacity by 55%.

The facility has already added 43 new jobs. “We are delighted to announce that construction of this facility was completed four months ahead of schedule and was brought in within budget, and that our ability to process 14.6 billion aluminum cans every year will help this project pay for itself quickly,” he said.  Total investment in this new facility was $25 million.

Tuscumbia Mayor Bill Shoemaker & RSA David Bronner

RSA Chief, Dr. David Bronner told The Quad-Cities Daily that this expansion is yet more evidence that The Shoals is standing  on a solid economic footing.

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RSA, which manages Alabama State Employees’ retirement funds, helped Wise out of a tight financial spot several years ago, when the slumping world economy put a severe strain on the company’s cash flow and its great need at that time for capital improvements. Bronner said it is one of the ways the RSA plows money back into the state, as opposed to simply making Wall Street investments.

Governor Robert Bentley told us that this is an example of what must be done for building jobs in Alabama.

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Later in the morning, we caught up with Congressman Mo Brooks, for his thoughts on the Wise Metals expansion.

 

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Alabama Reclamation Operations, a division of Wise Metals Group, has been renamed “Element 13,” for aluminum, the 13th element in the periodic chart of the elements.  As part of one of the largest recycling companies in the world, this division reclaims used beverage containers and remelts them for use by Wise Alloys in the production of new aluminum sheet stock. That sheet stock is sold to beverage and food companies for use in the production of new aluminum cans and containers.

Brenda Brown of Wise Metals Cuts Ribbon

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