We've heard a lot about thieves stealing metal or copper in the wiregrass.
But the new law that starts tomorrow will make it harder for them to get away with it.

It’s always been a pretty easy process.
When someone has scrap metal or copper they want to sell.
They bring it to a scrap metal buying business...and get money for what they bring in.
And for years copper thieves have gotten away with brining in items that weren't theirs.
Starting Wednesday, a new law will make it harder.

“There's two main parts of the law, the first deals with individual scrap metal, the copper, burned copper we can't take anymore from individuals, and ac coils.” Emfinger Steel Vice President Samuel Emfinger said.

However, a-c technicians or air conditioner contractors are exempt from this rule.

“The second part is dealing with regulations we do have to have a few more things for record keeping when someone comes in.” Emfinger said.

“They have to show identification, photo id, drivers license, some sort of identification showing who you are plus, your vehicle information is now in line.” Houston County Sheriff Office Captain Antonio Gonzalez said.

“We have to have the tag number off the vehicle and a picture of the scrap as well.” Emfinger said.

All of this information will be entered into a statewide database, to keep track of who brings in what.

“If you try to take your stolen scrap metal from one location to another location they get your information and they enter it into the database and it will show where you just attempted to use the same ploy at the previous scrap metal place.” Gonzalez said.

Emfinger believes he may see a drop in business from the new law, but he knows it will be for a good cause.
“It really hurts the people they are stealing it from, but i think these types of regulation are just what we need to cut down on theft.”

Emfinger believes the cooperation between scrap metal companies and law enforcement officers will take a lot of thieves off the street.