“It’s a messy world,” says Dusty Gibbs while walking past piles of copper wiring and kitchen sinks in the warehouse of Kirschbaum & Krupp (K&K) Metal Recycling LLC. “But this is about as clean and organized as it gets.”

Gibbs would know. As the new co-owner of K&K—and a longtime co-owner of Residual Materials, another scrap metal recycling operation in Grand Forks, North Dakota—he has been in the metal recycling business for more than 30 years. He purchased K&K in 2006 with Mitch, his brother, and Henry Wang, a business partner in China. In an effort to improve K&K and drive industry standards into the 21st century, they have spent the better part of two years making the company as lean—and green—as possible.

It seems to be working. One year after purchasing the business, the owners saw revenues balloon from $48.4 million in 2006 to $83.6 million in 2007. Current sales are as much as five million pounds of metal a month, and the company saves about 55 million pounds of nonferrous metals from landfills every year.

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