NSC a Leader in Fired Shell Recycling

It’s time to start recycling fired shotgun shells, and the National Shooting Complex in San Antonio is leading the way.

by Nick Sisley

Recycling. It’s a buzzword our citizens have been into for more than a decade, but the latest recycling effort may be a bit surprising – recycling fired shotgun shells – and the National Shooting Complex in San Antonio is leading the way. A company called Garrison Green, LLC, led by Andrew Fishbone, came up with the idea, and he and his partner also developed a method of separating the plastic from the metal from the paper of shotgun shells so all three parts can be recycled.

Turns out that many of today’s shotgun shells contain enough paper via base wadding to make it profitable to recycle the paper portion. Once this was discovered about paper, why not recycle clay target boxes and shotshell boxes as well? So Garrison Green is doing that, too.

Garrison Green, LLC, has their processing factory in the Denver, CO area. So how is our National Shooting Complex leading the way on this? Andrew Fishbone came to NSSA-NSCA Executive Director Michael Hampton, Jr. in late September, 2011 with this idea. Hampton liked the concept or at least the possibilities, so he sent Fishbone to Royce Graff, Director of the National Shooting Complex, and Pete Masch, Facilities Manager of the National Shooting Complex.

The three major shoots held at the National Shooting Complex are the World Skeet Championships and National Sporting Clays Championship, both held yearly, and the World English Sporting Clays Championships, hosted at the NSC every other year. These shoots are run by their respective organizations. However, some type of clay target shooting is going on year-round at the gun club, and these other shoots are all Royce’s responsibility. These can be corporate shooting events, charity fund-raising events, open public shooting, or other types of shoots that may include skeet, sporting clays, 5-stand, F.I.T.A.S.C., trap, or other shooting disciplines. Royce coordinates all these events and is also responsible for soliciting corporations and organizations to conduct these shoots.

As Facilities Manager, Pete Masch is responsible for any and all maintenance that goes on – like clay target machine maintenance, grounds maintenance, and, as he told me, “sanding, welding, polishing, drilling, rebuilding, everything.” Masch lives right on the club grounds.

Both Graff and Masch told me they have been pleasantly surprised with the way this young recycling program is progressing. Very importantly, this program can be taken up by virtually every gun club in the country. In years past, the staff at the National Shooting Complex would go through the fired shotshells and individually separate them by manufacturer, so this was a bit of a profit center, depending upon the number of staff hours spent doing the separating and what shooters were willing to pay for the fired shells.

However, in recent years, many of the shotshells being fired and discarded have not been all that reloadable. Shooters don’t buy non-reloadable fired shells. If the fired shells might be good for reloading only once, shooters haven’t been willing to pay much, which made staff hours involved in separating fired shells questionable. Eventually, Graff arranged for the shells to be picked up by a local company. Royce did not know how the hulls were handled once they left the club.

For all gun clubs, fired empty shotshells have long been a problem. Often clubs have to pay to have them hauled away with other trash. Some clubs burn the shells, probably not an environmentally good answer. But now, with Garrison Green, LLC, shells will become less of a problem. How so?

Garrison Green supplies gun clubs, free of charge, huge nylon bags that are 39×39 inches square and 46 inches tall. These bags have perforations which allow rain water to drain, so they can be stored outside. Royce told me they hold about 400 pounds of spent shotshells.

Here’s the way hulls are handled at skeet and trap shoots at the National Shooting Complex: Shooters who catch their hulls but do not keep them for reloading are provided a container into which the empties can be placed, and referees police empty shells from the ground where necessary. At the end of each round, these empties can be dumped into provided receptacles, which may be those provided by Garrison Green or simply empty clay target boxes. At the end of the shooting day, Pete Masch’s crews make their rounds to each field, picking up the empties and taking them to the 39x39x46-inch bags.

Individual gun clubs can determine their own best methods of getting empty hulls to the huge storage bags that Garrison Green provides.

Sporting clays and 5-stand stations tend to have an empty shell receptacle at each station. The National Shooting Complex uses 30-gallon plastic barrels which are emptied every day by the grounds staff and the empty hulls taken to the large bags. These bags are neatly stored in rows until Garrison Green is notified to pick them up. Again, because of this new recycling program, shooters should be advised to put their empties in receptacles provided.

Graff and Masch actually compact and bubble wrap the empty clay target boxes to be picked up for shipment to Garrison Green’s factory in Colorado. Again, this pick-up service is free. Most gun clubs will not have compactors or bubble-wrap machines, but Garrison Green will provide bags for clay target boxes as well. Consequently, burning target boxes at any small gun club will become a thing of the past, eliminating fire concerns. Instead of transporting target boxes to the burn area, clubs can simply break down the boxes and transport them to the waiting receptacles.

From just the 2011 World Skeet Championships and the National Sporting Clays Championship, Garrison Green has picked up 73 of the 39x39x46 bags. At about 400 pounds each, this means that nearly 30,000 pounds of fired shotgun shells and clay target boxes are being recycled from just these two shoots. Hopefully, every gun club in the nation will become involved with this recycling, and if that happens, the 30,000 pounds from these two 2011 shoots will become the figurative drop in the bucket.

Garrison Green also provides a frame to hold the 39x39x46 bags upright and open, making them easy to fill. Another bonus from Garrison Green will center around what the individual gun club gets back for participating in this recycling. Depending upon the number of 400-pound bags the company gets back, Garrison Green offers a number of different items for the gun club, such as gun racks, benches, and more. These products are heavy and very well made. Royce Graff suggested that picnic tables would be a good idea for Garrison Green to consider in the future.

“In a way, we’re getting something for nothing,” is the way Graff put it to me. “The spent shells are a liability these days. Now not only are we relieved of getting rid of them, we also get useful products in return.”

It’s easy for gun clubs to sign up for this recycling program. Simply go online to www.garrisongreenllc.com and follow the prompts to register. Garrison Green will send you an operating agreement, and shortly the supplies your club needs to start recycling will be shipped to the address you provide.