Northern Metal Recycling plans to relocate to Becker, between Saint Cloud and the Twin Cities, after shutting down its shredding operation in north Minneapolis last night under an agreement with the state Pollution Control Agency. M-P-C-A Air Permit Section Manager Don Smith says, unlike in Minneapolis, everything in Northern Metal’s Becker facility will be indoors. “There’s nothing really that’s going to cause a lot of blowing material, materials outside the shredder and things like that, that really occurred constantly in the Minneapolis facility,” Smith says.
Closure of Northern Metal’s plant in north Minneapolis came after a whistleblower admitted he was told *not* to record pollution readings that exceeded the maximum allowed in the company’s permit. In 2014 the M-P-C-A found, in the air around the north Minneapolis shredder, high levels of pollutants linked to increased risk of heart attack, bronchitis and asthma.