EZA Recycling Solutions Wants Your Waste – And Will Pay You For It.
By Mark S. Kuhar
When EZA Recycling Solutions founder Ezekiel Setne was nine years old, he tagged along with his parents to return some of the family’s empty aluminum soda cans. It wasn’t long before he was raking in $10 per month by rounding up and bagging the cans himself.
At 16 years old, Setne entered community college, using profits from fixing cars and recycling their spare parts to pay tuition. It was the start of a lucrative recycling business that today provides a valuable service to the aggregates industry.
Setne had heard that rock mines often have trouble getting rid of waste materials. Scrap conveyor belt, poly pipe and metal would pile up in the boneyard and the maintenance supervisor would get stuck calling a handful of companies to clean it up.
Setne had been recycling metal for a decade and had some experience with plastics, but rubber belting was far more difficult to handle – the industry standard at the time was simply to pay contractors to take it to a landfill. After several months of research and negotiation he worked out a way to pay customers for conveyor belt. He used the profits he made from selling his Honda S2000 sports car and purchased his first truckload of mining waste. Thus, EZA Recycling Solutions was born in Denton, Texas.
“That first year we recycled 400,000 lb. of waste,” Setne said. “Last year we did about 12 million lb., and this year we are projecting we will do 20–25 million lb.”
A pretty impressive 10-year track record of growth.
“We control the largest market share of recycled conveyor belt by volume,” Setne said. “And there is substantially more of that market share to be had. We are looking for the well-worn belts, where they have been worn down to the ply. End-product re-use for this material is impact-resistant mats, gym floors, lobster traps, commercial fencing in ranching – there are a lot of uses for the material.”
The process for working with aggregates producers is easy, according to Setne. A producer sends pictures and a description of the material they want picked up. EZA Recycling Solutions identifies an end-user for the material. The producer stages the material for pick-up on their site. Then, EZA Recycling Solutions picks up the material for delivery to the end-user, or the material is trucked back to Texas for storage or use on the company site. Sometimes it is a combination of the two.
“People generally contact us via our website at ezarecyclingsolutions.com,” Setne said. “There is a contact form that allows them to enter what material they have, where it is located, contact information and we handle the rest.”
Today, EZA Recycling Solutions still works with its original mining clients and has expanded to handle large-scale recycling projects in several other industries. In addition to its core focus of conveyor belt, HDPE pipe, and metals, EZA now recycles a variety of waste materials that can be found in industrial quantities.
“We buy rolled or wound conveyor belt (rubber, fabric, or steel cable) nationwide in any condition and any size, no matter what the belt was used for or how dirty or clean it may be,” Setne said. “We are the true no hassle used and scrap conveyor belt purchaser. We can also purchase un-rolled conveyor belting depending on the location of the belt.
“We buy conveyor belt in minimum quantities of 30,000 lb., but sometimes we can also handle smaller loads depending on the location of the belt. We ship on standard 50-ft. flatbed trucks which can be loaded with telescopic forklifts or a small crane. We will weigh our truck in and out on your scales and pay for your material based on your scale weight,” Setne concluded.
The company also provides free small- and large-scale demolition services for metal structures and can typically pay for the scrap it demolishes.
“We can provide full container service to handle your maintenance and other metal waste streams,” Setne said.
EZA Recycling Solutions is a true American success story. “I completely capitalized the company myself,” Setne said. “No investors, no government subsidies, no grants.
“Our business provides value all down the supply chain,” Setne said. “It helps the mine site reach its environmental goals and saves them money, not to mention man- and equipment hours. It helps the end-user with its raw material requirements. Overall, it is a benefit to the economy.”
Contact EZA Recycling Solutions at 940-218-8345, or www.ezarecyclingsolutions.com.