Auto parts city was once considered a menace in the community. But after greening up its act, it’s now earning top environmental awards — including Green Business of the Year from the Green Business League.

It may look like a junkyard, but brothers Jay and Larry Brosten hope to change your mind.

“We’ve spent too many years trying to improve our image and we’ve spent millions of dollars setting this facility up and trying to do the right thing,” said Larry Brosten. “But it’s always had the stigma of the ‘j-word’.”

The three-generation old Auto Parts City in Gurnee just got an $8 million make-over. The family’s goal is to set the green standard in auto recycling.

Good going guys! Keep up the green work! Congratulations to Auto Parts City from everyone here at GreenVehicleDisposal.com

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“Aggressive, top-notch facilities that understand the power of networking and education”.  That is how the Locator Executive V.P Charis Lloyd describes what it takes to be listed in the top 25 most influential recyclers list for 2009.  And our friend David Gold was voted number one, as the most influential auto recycler of 2009!

We caught up with David for a brief chat on Monday morning and when asked how it felt to be voted number one as the most influential auto recycler of 2009 he replied, “I was in shock!  I love the business and love all the great people involved in it.” “It is a huge honor and over at Standard Auto Wreckers we are committed to helping our fellow recyclers across North America and the world.”

I really loved this analogy, it is very pertinent to us here because we are currently working with about half a dozen auto recyclers, upgrading their websites.

A user won’t wrestle with your site. Web design, particularly navigation, is not the place to get clever. Web design should be no more complicated than book design. You might notice every book shares the exact same user interface. As do cars. As do bicycles. I have no idea how my car works. People have explained the workings of the internal combustion engine to me, and I nod sagely, but really, I don’t have a clue. Nor do I need to know. I just turn the key and hit the pedal. Your website design should ask nothing more of the user than a car does. Assume nothing, other than the user will point and click something obvious.

For those of you that missed the news a couple of months ago we partnered up with CarsForums.com and we have our own forum area titled Used Auto Parts and Car Recycling – Just today we cracked 2,500 views and are looking forward to having many more visit.

We have some really great topics over there and I would like to encourage our members and visitors to swing-on-over and contribute!

Thanks again to everyone that has helped this partnership become such a great success!!!

We are starting a new feature where we will take a look at each of our affiliates and give you some background and info on them.  The article was written back in 2005 at www.PartsLocator.com

Matthew and Justin Skidmore and Bill Janssen own a neat, efficient and profitable auto recycling operation (www.BestAutoSalvage.com). They’ve been doing it for nearly 20 years. You can’t eat off the floor, but the veteran staff can take a phone order, locate the part and have it ready to ship in a matter of minutes. It’s what the business is all about.

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