The Department of Public Safety (DPS) registers and regulates all Metal Recycling Entities (MREs) in Texas under the authority of the Texas Occupations Code, Chapter 1956 and the related administrative rules. DPS licenses businesses, evaluates the eligibility of applicants through criminal history background checks, oversees transaction record keeping, and conducts routine inspections to ensure compliance with applicable laws and administrative rules. DPS also provides online training to all MRE owners.
Metal Recycling Entities
Anyone operating as a Metal Recycling Entity (MRE) in Texas is required to register with DPS, to comply with Texas Occupations Code, Chapter 1956
An MRE is “a business predominantly engaged in performing the manufacturing process by which scrap, used, or obsolete metal is converted into raw material products consisting of prepared grades and having an existing or potential economic value, by methods including processing, sorting, cutting, classifying, cleaning, baling, wrapping, shredding, shearing, or changing the physical form of that metal.”
An MRE could also be defined as a “business that manufactures the raw material products from the recycling process into producer or consumer goods.”
Applicable exemptions:
- The purchase of regulated material by a manufacturer whose primary business is the manufacture of iron and steel products made from melting scrap iron and scrap steel.
- The purchase of regulated material from a public utility, or a manufacturing, industrial, commercial, retail, or other seller that sells regulated material in the ordinary course of the seller's business.