One can bring aluminum cans, brass, copper, electronics or other scrapable items to Ralph’s Recycling at 3968 State Route 3 in Red Bud for instant cash. The business also hosts rummage sales, recycling drives and more.

When Jonathon VanBuren purchased the business seven years ago, it came with just one warehouse and two pieces of equipment. Now, he is expanding the recycling and salvage game to include a media shop and a game of his own.

VanBuren bought Ralph’s Recycling in late 2014, having saved his pizza delivery tip money and selling items on Ebay to pay for the venture. 

“All the business came with was a name, forklift and a scale,” VanBuren mused. “Now we have 20 storage trailers, two skid steers, our own box trucks and a media shop, online sales office and we do regional contracts. We’re working on some national contracts.” 

The media shop, Midtown Media, is one of VanBuren’s latest ventures. He explained this new addition helps better draw the connections between recycling and salvage. Often, what is recycled can be refurbished so it can be sold as a whole, or its parts can repair another item or be sold themselves. 

“Typically recycling and salvage go hand in hand,” VanBuren said. “Salvage is like finding good things that can be reused, and usually 10 percent of what we get in can go to salvage. (For example), we’ll get an electronic scrap and we’ll get a good laptop in there that turns on but maybe has a couple of cosmetic problems like a crack somewhere. They might give it to a thrift store and we end up buying it from them (and refurbishing it).” 

Through paying cash for aluminum, brass copper, electronics and other materials, rummage sales, recycling drives and more, VanBuren and his crew have made a big impact so far. 

“In the past seven years, we’ve kept 25 million pounds of stuff out of the landfill,” VanBuren beamed. “And, we’re going to keep going.” 

He is hoping to show the public the process of this work “minus the muck, the cold and the hardship” through the company’s new game “Scrap Metal Smash.” 

“The main game is all about smashing pieces of metal,” VanBuren said.

The app, available only on Android at this point, simulates a day in the scrap yard. Using an avatar designed to look like VanBuren, players smash different discarded appliances and objects to mine for valuable aluminum, copper and other materials. Through enough hard work, they can unlock different levels and equipment, such as VanBuren’s overalls and goggles. 

While the prices of the mined materials do not yet correspond exactly with their current market price – an improvement VanBuren hopes to soon make – each object users break down contains the exact materials it would in real life. 

“The washer drops motors and wires because that’s what’s in a washer, and the radiator gives me aluminum and copper,” VanBuren said, giving an example of the game’s realism. “I really wanted that to match, I thought that was important.” 

As shop manager Ryan “Homer” Homrighausen recently learned, one of the perks of working with VanBuren is the chance to have a character replica of yourself in a game. The team is currently in the process of designing “Homer’s Can Crush” – a game that mimics its name, which will be released at a later date.

Ben Rittmann, an artist who specializes in pixelated designs, and J6 Games provided the graphic designs for both games. 

VanBuren’s passion for the field and educating others about it really took off when he was in college, at which time he came to a realization: 

“I was sitting at SIUE in Peck Hall having a conversation with a buddy and I was drinking a can of soda. I looked down at it and was thinking about its pigments and chemistry and all that stuff, and I realized the air in this can and the can itself are pretty chemically similar to a red ruby,” he said. “This is trash, but this stuff could be a gemstone very easily through a process. In that respect, I realized that every atom of everything in the universe is valuable, and the tragedy that anything is thrown away is unspeakable.” 

His realization prompted VanBuren to reimagine the world of recycling to include everything. 

“All the stuff on the shelves (in stores), we’ve put a lot of work into this stuff. We’ve mined it, harvested it, trucked it to a different place, manufactured it, shipped it, shipped it again, manufactured it again, all to have it land down on the shelves and then (eventually) we throw it in the trash and it gets buried with a bunch of dirty diapers and bacon grease,” VanBuren said. “It’s a problem and I want to streamline a solution and I think so far with the limited resources we’ve had, we’ve done a good job of doing that for people in this area.”

For more information on Ralph’s services – including scrap and can buying, recycling drives, rummage sales and more – call 618-282-4400 or visit Ralph’s Recycling Center, Midtown Media or Scrap Metal Smash on Facebook. Check here for more updates on Homer’s Can Crush’s release date, too.