A nearly 30-fold increase in business volume in 14 years is usually enough to raise the profile of any business. But one such Bowling Green company has managed to fly under the radar while – literally – doing business by the truckload.

Drive past the Southern Recycling headquarters on Clay Street on a Monday morning, and you’ll see stark evidence that this is one booming business. A dozen or more tractor-trailers will be lined up, delivering the scrap metal that is the lifeblood of Southern Recycling.

Started in 1985 as a recycler of paper and plastics, the company has evolved and grown right along with the Bowling Green economy while remaining on its 5-acre location near the CSX Railroad tracks.

Processing leftover steel, copper and aluminum from such local industries as Bowling Green Metalforming, Constellium, Bilstein and Fritz Winter, Southern Recycling has been averaging close to 14,000 tons of metal per month.

That’s a far cry from the 500 tons the company was doing when John Fellonneau was hired as president in 2003.

“It’s amazing the amount of material that goes through this place,” Fellonneau said. “Not many people realize the impact of this business.”

Already with a presence in Nashville, Owensboro, Elizabethtown and Hopkinsville, Southern Recycling will rake in revenue in the nine-figures neighborhood this year. Such growth explains why the subsidiary of Bowling Green’s Houchens Industries is preparing for a major expansion.

Approved in October for $100,000 in tax incentives by the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority, Southern Recycling is planning to relocate its headquarters to a 45-acre site on Louisville Road near Brannen’s Tobacco Warehouse.

“This will allow us to not operate two or three shifts,” Fellonneau said. “It will be much more efficient in handling material. The technology hasn’t changed much, but this will give us better ways to move the material through the yard.”

Fellonneau estimates the company will spend $7.5 million on the new facility, which he hopes will be operating by next October. Southern Recycling will invest another $6 million or so in new equipment used to prepare the metals for sale to the likes of AK Steel, Steel Dynamics and Big River Steel.

Opening the new facility will have an added benefit for the company and for Warren County residents who use its curbside recycling services.

The existing Clay Street location will be turned into a facility for processing the paper, plastic and beverage cans picked up by the Southern Recycling trucks. It will mean a change in how curbside recycling is done, Fellonneau said.

“It will increase the efficiency of our curbside program,” he said. “We will have a single-stream process at Clay Street.”

The recycling program will change from the red bins that are now sorted curbside by Southern Recycling employees on the trucks to 55-gallon rolling bins similar to the bins used for trash pickup.

“The trucks will dump the recyclables and they will go through magnetic separation and other sorting to get them ready,” Fellonneau said.

Fellonneau said the new system, expected to be in place sometime in 2019, will enable his company to keep pace with Warren County’s growth.

“Obviously, the population has increased,” he said. “The system we put in place in 1995 was the preferred system at the time. But we have outgrown that. It’s time to move into the modern day.”

Fellonneau said 42 percent of Warren County homes participate in curbside recycling now. He thinks that could increase with the added efficiency.

Southern Recycling, the first non-grocery business acquired by Houchens Industries, has been Warren County’s sole curbside recycling provider since 1995.

“The curbside program is important to us,” Fellonneau said. “It’s performing a public service and conserves a tremendous amount of landfill space. We’re looking forward to doing that for many years to come.”

– Follow business reporter Don Sergent on Twitter @BGDNbusiness or visit bgdailynews.com.