Garage door systems in the homes we service contain a variety and volume of metals. They are manufactured this way to maintain a durable and long-lasting life but they eventually wear out and need replacing. Garage door recycling of old metal plays a big factor in our day-to-day operations.

Without exception garage door repair and replacements result in a lot of scrap metal. This metal consists of galvanized steel but can also contain regular steel, copper, zinc, aluminum and brass, wood and may other components when replaced cannot be reused in a garage door system.

We live in a very disposable nation and a lot of this scrap material is landing in landfills.

This was also true for us a Covenant Garage Doors. All the old garage door parts were brought back to our location where it was put into large dumpsters with absolutely no thought into the recycling aspect and all this material was hauled off to the dump. In 2010 we took a long look at starting a recycling program. This started with a online search of metal recycling companies, then scrap metal buyers and contacting these companies to learn about how the process works, how they prefer to receive the material and what happens to the material after they acquire it. After all, we did not want the metal to make one big circle from us, to them and to the land fill. Next we talked to other industries who had established a recycling program and learned that there can be significant amount of money made in recycling waste materials.

Since we are a small company, starting a recycling program would be relatively simple and would not involve a large startup cost. A large utility trailer was acquired, several buckets and an ample amount of space were set aside to sort and store the scrap as it came in.

As the garage doors and openers are disassembled and removed from customers’ homes, they are transported back to our location where the material is sorted by type. Larger metal door sections are stacked to the side, other metals like track, cable assemblies, old springs, openers, and bigger pieces are placed on the trailer. Copper wire is removed from the openers and placed into buckets as well as the smaller metal pieces like rollers, hinges, cable drums, nuts, bolts, and screws. Wood door sections and paper, items which are biodegradable, are placed into large dumpsters where the waste companies haul them off. Periodically, all this scrap material is stacked onto the trailer and hauled to the recycler to be purchased. The recycler then in turn sells all the scrap metal to larger rendering plants that melt the metal down into large “slugs” which are transported to various manufacturing plants throughout the country, where the “slugs” are turned into various products and resold to the consumer.

Since starting this program in early 2010, Covenant Garage Doors estimates that we have recycled anywhere from 10-12 tons of metal. Metal that is kept out of our landfills and is turned back into useful products that we use every day. This is doing our part of being a greener, more responsible member of our community.