Cascade Steel Mill, Oregon

Established in 1968, the Cascade Steel plant is the only steel mill in Oregon, and one of only five on the West Coast (none of which make steel from raw materials, like the old steel mills back east). This plant is a mini mill, using an electric arc furnace to make steel from scrap metal, producing things like rebar and coils of steel wire. Scrap is collected outside, and enters the 80-acre plant at its melt shop, where it is liquefied by the furnace, then flows to a refining furnace, where its temperature and composition is adjusted. It then flows into a continuous billet caster, which makes long bars (billets) of finished steel. Some billet is sold and shipped as is, and some is melted and shaped into rod, wire, and flat steel in the plant's rolling mill. Cascade has been owned by Schnitzer Steel Industries since 1984. Schnitzer is a large metal scrap and steel production company operating scrapyards and automobile parts and recycling centers (once called junkyards) around the country.