Upstate Shredding

Upstate Shredding - Weitsman Recycling is an American scrap processing and recycling company headquartered in Owego, New York.

History
Adam Weitsman, who founded Upstate Shredding in Owego, worked at the Manhattan Art Gallery. Later, he set up his own American Folk Art Gallery in Greenwich village in 1991. Weitsman returned to his hometown of Owego, NY after he lost his sister to cancer and joined his father in the family scrap metal business. He developed an interest in the processing side of scrap metal recycling, and began growing the third generation family business.

In 1997, Weitsman opened Upstate Shredding on a 17-acre site at the Tioga County Industrial Park in Owego.

In 2005, Upstate Shredding purchased its sister company, Ben Weitsman & Son, Inc. Adam's father Fred announced his retirement in 2005, and Adam acquired a new scrapyard in Solvay, NY in 2009.

In 2014, the company acquired Murtagh Scrap Handling, a recycler based in Rome, New York.

After receiving $1 million from the state of New York’s Empire State Development (ESD) fund, the company announced plans to open a media plant in Owego.

In 2015, Upstate Shredding bought a 5.6 million stake in Metalico Inc., a Cranford, New Jersey-based scrap metal processing company.

Various other acquisitions took place between the periods of 2012 - 2016, including acquisitions of a scrap yard in New Castle, PA, a port facility in Albany, NY and Empire Recycling in Watertown which was later closed. By the end of 2016, these locations were collectively known as Upstate Shredding - Weitsman Recycling.

The company has two facilities in Owego, and operates in 12 locations across New York and Pennsylvania.

In 2019, the company made a donation to the American Cancer Society as part of its corporate social responsibility initiatives.

Controversy
In May 2021, Sierra Club, an environmental organization based in Oakland, California, filed a suit against Weitsman alleging that the scrap recycler did not take adequate steps to protect against stormwater discharge from its facility in Albany, New York.