Made in the Midlands members were treated to a fascinating insight into the metals recycling sector at the latest breakfast networking event.
The event was hosted by Sims Metal Management and involved members being taken on a series of guided tours around the company’s Rabone Lane works in Smethwick - just one of its six sites in Birmingham and the Black Country.
Members were bussed to the site from a reception area at the nearby Brasshouse Community Centre and once at the recycling facility were shown what happens to the scrap from the moment it arrives at the processing yard to its departure ready for its onward journey, often to export markets such as Turkey, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
The £20m plant is one of the largest in Europe and is capable of processing 1,000 tonnes of scrap a day, with the majority of waste recovered from scrapped cars.
The flattened vehicles are placed on a conveyor belt where they are shredded and any of the reusable metal is extracted and sent out ready for dispatch. Non-ferrous materials such as interiors and roof linings are removed and placed in landfill.
Sims is a professional metals recycling company which has evolved from a scrap metal business. The company has more than 40 sites in the UK and is especially strong in the West Midlands, where the company plays a critical role supporting local businesses.
The group employs around 660 people around the UK, with thousands more across the globe. Globally, the group operates from 250 sites - including 116 in North America.
Globally, Sims Metal Management recovers and recycles over 14 million tonnes of scrap metal a year of which two million tonnes is handled in the UK alone. Its reprocessing sees scrap vehicles, machinery, building materials and a whole host of other domestic and industrial items recycled into useful commodities that are are re-used in manufacturing new products.
Robert Price, National Contracts Manager, Sims Metal Management, said: “I would like to thank everyone for attending the event and especially Made in the Midlands for helping to organise it and make it such a success.
“We support and would recommend Made in the Midlands. It’s brought in a lot of opportunities for us.”
Members attending the event included: A E Oscroft, Alloy Heat Treatment, AMCO Services, Bracebridge Engineering, Cosgriff Whitehouse Electrical, Exsel Group, Forward Industrial Products Group, Gibbs Scrap, Grove Design, Hadley Group, Hydrastore, In-Comm Training, Inductelec, Jungheinrich, Kloeckner Metals, Lander Automotive, Lean Transition Solutions, Lineview Solutions, Lycett Fabrications, Malthouse Engineering, The Manufacturing Technology Centre, Metalast, Metal Craft Industries, Nufast, Portakabin, Siemens, Smart-Space UK, Staysafe PPE and the University of Wolverhampton.
Also attending were MIM Patrons: Gleeson Recruitment, MAN Commercial Protection, MHA MacIntyre Hudson, MyWorkwear and Zicam Integrated Security.
To facilitate the event - and to show its support of the local community - Sims Metal Management paid for the children who would normally use the community centre on a Thursday morning to go on a visit to Cadbury World.
