SOUTH BEND — The sun outside is shining, the spring breeze is gentle, and Michael Tucker is smiling a big, toothy grin. “Business is good, real good,” says Tucker, who just tuned a vanload of discarded aluminum cans into $46 at a scrap metal dealer on Prairie Avenue. “That’s a tank of gas,” says Tucker, 58, who said he picks up most of the cans around his neighborhood. In 2009, Tucker’s same load of discarded cans would have netted him a profit of about $30. Next month, if current trends hold, it could bring him more than $50. Since falling from near record-high prices in 2008, scrap metal prices have been slowly climbing since the first half of 2009, when they dropped drastically in response to the struggling economy. But now, thanks to a small resurgence in American manufacturing and growing global demand, scrap metal prices are on the rise. That’s good news for people like Tucker, who also brings in old appliances, pieces from junk cars and the occasional load of copper pipes – all of it, he says, acquired legally – to be sold as scrap. But the rising scrap metal prices have also caught the attention of police, who worry about a rise in the theft of scrap metal. Capt. Phil Trent, South Bend police spokesman, said scrap metal thefts were almost nonexistent during the past year, partly a factor of metal prices, but also because many areas had already been hit hard. “When prices were high before, you had scrappers breaking into homes, tearing pipes and wires out of walls,” Trent said. “A lot of the things that could easily be stolen are already gone.” But Trent said police are beginning to receive reports of scrap metal thefts again, some from recently foreclosed homes. Last week, an empty home in northern St. Joseph County was a victim of a scrap metal theft where copper pipes were pulled out of the walls, said county police spokesman Sgt. Bill Redman. “The owner came by to check on it and found that someone had broken in,” Redman said. Police say those type of incidents are likely to rise with the seasonal temperature, making late-night scrap-metal forays more comfortable for the thieves. But so far, police have not seen the type of thefts that were common before 2009, when scrap metal prices led to dangerous tactics like stealing copper from active power lines or manhole covers from city streets. “With the uptick in the price of metals, there tends to be an uptick in theft,” Trent said. “It’s something we’re watching.”
Staff writer Dave Stephens: dstephens@sbtinfo.com (574) 235-6209
