Mark Friedman is a fourth-generation metal recycler: "It kind of goes into your blood," he said.

His family has been in this business since his great-grandfather opened Kalamazoo Junk and Fur in Kalamazoo, Michigan in 1920. 

A hundred years later, the 56-year-old Friedman owned and operated Leon Iron and Metal, a company that his father Leon opened when he moved his family from Kalamazoo to Tallahassee in 1974 to escape the cold weather.

Leon died in 1999, but Marc continued to work with his mother Lois. 

"I am very, very proud of him," she said. "He did a great job. Since he took over, his business has at least doubled."

Six days a week, the truck will drive into the lane of Aenon Church Road west of Tallahassee and drive onto the balance.

After weighing, they returned to a lot of electrical appliances, water heaters, old bicycles, etc. When the driver unloaded the overflowing truck bed and added it to the mountain of objects, the metal clinked.

Then, like an arcade game, a large paw zoomed in. It is like a piece of loose-leaf paper, one action kneads the washing machine, microwave oven and old futon into a ball.

The crane puts the material into a large green machine, which chews it and spit it out in neat cube form. 

The cubes are loaded into semi-finished products and sent out, and finally melted and made into new products.

Leon Iron and Metal tens of thousands of pounds of metal go through this process every day.

"People don't really think about how much metal they have in their lives," Friedman said. "The U.S. scrap recycling industry...is an important part of the chain of affordable materials for consumers."

Contact Tori Lynn Schneider at tschneider@tallahassee.com or Twitter @photoriphy. Check out her photos on Instagram @phototori_. 

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