Recycling firm to return to Chch

Press, 21 August 1989, Page 1

Recycling firm to return to Chch

By

KAY FORRESTER

The scrap-metal recycling firm that last year stopped its South Island collection of crushed scrap, including car bodies, now plans to establish a $2 million shredding plant in Christchurch.

Pacific Metal Industries, Ltd, axed its South Island collection in June last year because the Government lifted import controls on steel and reduced tariff protection.

The pull-out by the Aucklandbased company triggered fears of the dumping of unwanted car bodies as car wreckers threatened to stop stockpiling bodies for which there might be no market.

Pacific Metal had previously sent a mobile crushing plant round wreckers’ yards compacting car bodies for transport by rail to Auckland.

The Christchurch City council and the Metropolitan Refuse Committee have been working since the June pull-out to find an alternative for the disposal of scrap.

The Metro Refuse chairman, Cr Ron Wright, welcomed the news of Pacific Metal’s return yesterday. But the good news for those with unwanted car bodies to get rid of is bad news for the Rollestbn couple who are in the process of setting up their own business to fill the gap left by Pacific Metal last year.

Trevor and Annie Munro have bought a site for a crushing plant

and are in the process of obtaining a shredder smaller but similar to the one Pacific Metal plans for Christchurch.

They have an agreement with the Metro Refuse Committee for the first right to all light-grade ferrous metals deposited at its refuse stations.

Mr Munro said last evening that there was no room for two scrap recyclers in the South Island market.

South Island Metal Recoveries, the company set up by the Munros, had anticipated getting 30,000 tonnes of metal a year.

That was the maximum it could handle.

Pacific Metal’s general manager, Mr Tom Graham, said that company had decided to install a permanent shredder in Christchurch on estimates of getting 10,000 to 12,000 tonnes of steel scrap from the South Island a year. The shredder would allow the company to collect and process all recyclable steel scrap in the south.

Mr Munro said there was not enough in scrap in the Sotith Island to meet both expected tonnages.

“We will just have to wait and see,” he said. The Munros have been collecting scrap from the refuse stations and stockpiling car bodies. Ironically it was their venture into the market that prompted Pacific Metal to look again at the South Island.

Mr Graham said the lifting of the export embargo on the steel scrap had totally changed the scrap recovery business. Pacific Metal now had to compete with people who would buy top-quality scrap and export it. The Munros planned to export the scrap through Lyttelton. “We have to move to protect raw material supplies for the local steel industry, although sometimes the economies are not attractive,” Mr Graham said. The scrap that' Pacific Metal recovered and processed was used by its sister company, Pacific Steel, Ltd.