Gone and scattered

Tiger Stadium in Detroit has been demolished. Its remains are scattered to the wind in a good way, according to the AP.

More than 94 percent of the demolished part of the stadium is being recycled. That includes over 11.4 million pounds of steel and almost 17.4 million pounds of concrete and other debris.

Some of it won’t go far — crushed structural concrete from the ballpark will likely be used in southeastern Michigan as fill material under roads, parking lots and foundations. Some of the metal, like steel from the stadium’s blue structural beams, could end up in anything from new cars to kitchen appliances. ...

With scrap prices sky-high — the price of scrap steel has increased 251 percent in the last five years — aggressive recycling has become more profitable. A recent survey by the National Demolition Association, an industry group, found about 75 percent of demolition material is typically reused or recycled.

The city of Detroit, which owned the old stadium, didn’t have to pay any money out of pocket for the demolition, which started in June. Instead, the joint venture doing the work, Farrow Group Inc. of Detroit and MCM Management Corp. of Bloomfield Hills, looked to turn a profit by selling the ballpark off as scrap.

“This project lent itself well to recycling,” said Michael Brehse, MCM’s vice president, who supervised the demolition. “There’s not a whole lot here ... that can’t be reused.” ...