Here is what the facility does for the county, and what it does not do.
♻️
$10.95M Disposal Liability — Eliminated
At 400 TPD, Nucor and DJJ currently spend approximately $10.95 million per year disposing of auto shredder material with no return. Under the agreement, that line moves from cost centre to revenue stream from Year 2. The disposal liability disappears from the P&L. The royalty replaces it.
$10.95M Disposal Liability — Eliminate
🏭
RCRA Reclassification Risk — Permanently Removed
Auto shredder residue contains lead, cadmium, and PCBs at levels that could trigger RCRA Subtitle C hazardous waste classification — a step-change to $150–$250/ton disposal cost. Material entering the manufacturing system is classified as industrial feedstock, not waste. That liability is permanently off the books for the duration of the 30-year agreement.
RCRA Reclassification Risk — Permanent
💰
No Capital Commitment — Pure Operating Decision
The Build-Own-Operate structure means Carbotura funds, builds, and operates the facility. Nucor and DJJ make no capital commitment, carry no construction risk, and take on no operating liability. From a balance sheet perspective, this is a long-term supply agreement — not a capital project. It does not compete with core steelmaking capex allocation.
No Capital Commitment — Pure Operating
🏘️
$180/Ton Royalty vs. $75/Ton Disposal — Structural Inversion
Current position: pay $75/ton, receive $0. Add $75/ton of avoided disposal and the Year 2 improvement is $101.25/ton.
$180/Ton Royalty vs. $75/Ton Disposal
⚡
ESG — Scope 3 Emissions Reduction, Reportable
Nucor publishes annual sustainability reports and targets. Diverting 146,000 tonnes of auto shredder material from landfill to manufacturing — with 87,600 tCO₂e of annual displacement — is a directly reportable Scope 3 reduction. The agreement converts a supply chain waste liability into a verifiable ESG asset with third-party audit potential. This is language that belongs in the annual report, not just the operating budget.
ESG — Scope 3 Emissions Reduction, Rep
💧
Regulatory Certainty for 30 Years
The agreement locks in disposal cost certainty for the full CSA term. Alabama ADEM tightening, landfill capacity constraints, and federal RCRA policy shifts all become Carbotura's operational risk — not Nucor's. A 30-year Beneficiation Fee with a 2.5% annual escalator is substantially more predictable than the open-ended trajectory of landfill gate rates, which have grown nearly 30% in inflation-adjusted terms since 2016.
Regulatory Certainty for 30 Years
Today vs. With the Factory
What Changes — Side by Side
🔴 Today
✗✗ 146,000 tonnes of auto shredder material buried in landfill every year
✗✗ ~$10.95 million per year spent on disposal — $0 returned
✗✗ Regulatory reclassification risk: could step-change to $250/ton overnight
✗✗ Lead, cadmium, and PCBs accumulating in North Alabama landfills
✗✗ 0 manufacturing jobs created from this material stream
✗✗ 87,600 tonnes of carbon emitted to atmosphere annually
✓✓ Regulatory exposure eliminated — material enters as manufacturing input
✓✓ Lead, cadmium, and PCBs permanently converted — not buried
✓✓ 192 direct manufacturing jobs in Morgan County
✓✓ 87,600 tonnes of carbon displaced — equivalent to ~19,000 cars
✓✓ Materials become products with global market value
✓✓ No landfill required — capacity preserved for future generations
✓✓ PFAS permanently destroyed in conversion process
✓✓ $80.6M annual economic impact in Morgan County and North Alabama
How the Money Works
The Circular Royalty™ — Explained Simply
This is not a subsidy. It is not a discount. Here is how North Alabama Industrial Corridor earns money back from the materials it supplies.
Your materials are collected
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The factory converts them into manufactured products
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Products are sold in global markets
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Royalty paid back to North Alabama Industrial Corridor
What the Circular Royalty™ is — in plain terms
Nucor and DJJ pay Carbotura a Beneficiation Fee of $150 per ton to have their Automotive Shredder Residue processed. Then, starting 13 months after the first fee payment, Carbotura pays them a Circular Royalty™ of $180 per ton, which grows every year for 30 years. The fee and the royalty are two separate payments in two directions, and this page does not add them together or subtract one from the other. The royalty is not a discount and not a rebate. It is a contractual payment derived from the value of what the material becomes.
Your Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
Both. The manufacturing facility directly employs 192 people from Morgan County — those are real jobs for real residents. Indirectly, it supports an estimated 480 more positions across the local supply chain. Every person employed there spends money locally, pays local taxes, and contributes to the community. The $80.6 million in annual economic activity circulates broadly. The environmental benefits — near-zero landfilling, carbon reduction, PFAS destruction — affect everyone who lives near North Alabama's industrial corridor, not just those working in it.
No. The facility is fully enclosed. All processing takes place inside an airlocked building, and the system is designed to have almost no atmospheric discharge. There is no open-air material handling — nothing is exposed to weather or wind. Odour from the process is captured and managed inside the building. Compare that to the current situation: auto shredder material in open transport and in landfill cells that release odour and leachate into the ground. The factory represents a significant improvement in neighbourhood air quality compared to what currently exists.
Three channels. First, direct employment: 192 jobs paying an average of approximately $75,000/year in wages — that is $14.4 million in annual wages going directly into North Alabama households. Second, property tax and local spending: a $75 million manufacturing facility adds substantially to Morgan County's industrial tax base and generates local supplier and service spending across the region. Third, the Circular Royalty™: starting 13 months after the factory opens, the industrial operators receive a contractual royalty payment back for every tonne of material processed. That money stays in the hands of North Alabama businesses. Over 30 years, that royalty is projected to total more than $280 million — money that currently goes to landfill operators and comes back as nothing.
The manufacturing system processes all of it. Auto shredder material is a complex mix: plastic foam, rubber, glass, textiles, small metal fragments, and residual fluids. The process handles this complexity — there is no requirement to pre-sort or separate materials before they enter the facility. The conversion process breaks everything down: organic materials (plastics, foam, rubber) become synthetic graphite and graphene compounds; inorganic materials (glass, dirt) become inert mineral residuals; metals are recovered separately. Everything that goes in gets turned into something useful. Nothing is burned, and nothing is buried.
No — and the difference matters fundamentally. Incineration burns material using oxygen and high heat. It destroys the organic content, produces ash, carbon dioxide, and air emissions. The valuable parts of the material — the carbon, the hydrogen, the metals — are lost to combustion. What remains is ash that still needs to be disposed of. The Advanced Circular Manufacturing process works in an oxygen-free chamber. There is no flame, no combustion, no burning. Instead, microwave energy dissociates the material into its elemental constituents in a controlled, oxygen-free environment — a process that breaks materials apart without burning them. The molecules are reformed rather than destroyed. The carbon becomes graphite. The hydrogen is released as gas. The metals are recovered intact. Incineration destroys. The manufacturing system manufactures. That is not a marketing distinction — it is a technical one with legal, regulatory, and environmental consequences. The facility is classified as a manufacturing facility, not an incineration or energy recovery facility.
The facility is not yet committed to being built. The next step is Term Sheet phase verification — a detailed technical and commercial assessment of the site, volumes, and agreement terms. That study takes approximately three months to complete. If the study proceeds and the agreement is executed, construction would begin approximately six months after the study authorisation. The facility would be operational approximately two years after construction begins — so roughly two and a half years from now, at the earliest. First royalty payments to the industrial operators would begin 13 months after the factory opens. Delay matters. Every quarter the decision is deferred is a quarter the factory opening is pushed back — and a quarter the jobs, economic activity, and royalty payments don't exist.
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Indicative reference only — not an offer. All financial figures are Carbotura planning-basis estimates unless marked VERIFIED. The FWDC of $75/ton is ESTIMATED from a Southeast regional blended average and requires disclosure of the current disposal contracts to verify. ASR volumes of 100/200/400 TPD are ESTIMATED and require DJJ shredder throughput data. The Beneficiation Fee of $150/ton and all Circular Royalty™ figures are ESTIMATED on Carbotura standard parameters and subject to Term Sheet phase verification. Site options are PROVISIONAL. Assumption Registry LOCKED WITH WARNINGS, April 2026. The Beneficiation Fee and the Circular Royalty™ are independent gross transactions and are not netted or combined anywhere in this package.
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Candidate siting area — provisional, subject to Term Sheet phase verification.