That Thing You Do
You can have your refiner come in and look at one process in your operation.
That will help. Or you can have them come in and look at your operation from
top to bottom. That will help more. Vinny Guadagna, vice president of sales
and marketing for United Precious Metal Refining Inc. in Alden, New York, says
that his company recently did such a once-over for a customer.
“We were contacted by one of our larger customers,” he says. “They asked us to
visit their factory so we could advise them on how to be more efficient in reclaiming
their precious metals. After touring their facility, we made a few suggestions.”
One was to install sink traps throughout the factory. “This would help reclaim
some of the precious metals that are often left on employees’ hands, which helps
to prevent precious metal loss,” says Gua-dagna. Another suggestion was to install
carpet in high-traffic areas to collect any precious metal residue caught on
employees’ shoes. The carpet can be ripped up every few years and sent in for
refining.
A policy of washing employee uniforms at the factory, combined with the installation
of a filtration system, would allow the company to reclaim material trapped on
employees’ clothes rather than having it stroll home with them.
United also recommended installing separate blower systems for gold and platinum
stations. Platinum group metals are typically refined separately because they
require more extensive processes for successful recovery. Just as it’s a good
idea to keep separate tools for working in platinum, so it’s worthwhile to trap
the metals separately for more efficient recovery.
The manufacturer got all that ad-vice—just for asking.
Which goes to show that refiners can be more than just the folks who burn
your scrap and give back money and metal. They can be the go-to guys when
you need answers, the experts you turn to when things aren’t running as smoothly
as you’d like. Let them take a look around. You never know what they might
turn up.
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