Business Rural / Summer 2013
RURAL SERVICES: Otago Metal Industries
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Scrap merchant has recycling in the blood Neil Grant Recycling, like other environmental activities, has assumed almost religious status. It is credited with saving the planet’s resources, reducing greenhouse gases, saving energy, reducing air and water pollution, and just generally making us feel good and worthy. Graham Rollo’s life has revolved around recycling. His father became a scrap metal merchant in Christchurch in the 1940s. The business expanded to cover much of the South Island. Graham Rollo came into the business, starting at the bottom, and working up to becoming the Dunedin based buyer. When his father died in 1977, he bought the Dunedin branch, and in 1985, merged it with the Dunedin branch of Copper Refining, owned by Wayne Andrews. The new company was called Otago Metal Industries Ltd. Since then they have bought out competitors in Invercargill and Cromwell, established a car crushing branch, and become a major Dunedin supplier of hired skips. Rollo reckons that metal recycling is perhaps the second oldest industry in human history, coming just after prostitution. (Despite his own history of merging, that would be just one merger too far, apparently.) Some facts and figures give a bit of perspective as to why it is so important even today. American recyclers claim that recycling iron, or ferrous metals leads to 75% savings in energy, 90% savings in raw materials used, 86% reduction in air pollution, 40% reduction in water use, 76% reduction in water pollution, and 97% reduction in mining wastes. Every ton of new steel made from scrap steel saves 1,115 kg of iron ore, 625 kg of coal, and 53 kg of limestone. Similar savings are made in the recycling of aluminium, copper, lead and zinc. Otago Metals needs to keep a close eye on the
world markets, which change constantly. China was a major buyer of ferrous metals for a while, but is now a much smaller market. Most steel is now exported to Indonesia, and the developing market in India. “We like to support local industries. We’re better off dealing with local companies,” Rollo says. So a lot of what they process goes to foundries in Christchurch which deal in high grade steel or copper, for instance. Metal destined for overseas is sent via Macaulay Metals, a long established recycling and broking New Zealand business. “We have set traders we deal with. We have been burnt dealing with overseas companies. It’s better staying with people you know in New Zealand. You build up personal relationships.” Part of the trick of being successful in the business is knowing what to buy, and what to take away for nothing as a service to clients. There is not much return for roofing iron, for instance, so they will take it, clean and crush it into a compact block, and then onsell it, but there is little profit to be had after processing and transporting it. This approach is also what led to the expansion into rubbish skips. They started providing skips for regular steel supply customers. It soon became apparent that there were advantages for themselves, as well as their clients. Picking up a skip full of metal is much less costly than having to take a loader to a site and pick it all up loose from the ground. Once word got around, it became clear that general rubbish skips would be a useful adjunct to the business. There are now three skip trucks servicing 160 skips in Dunedin city. Rollo says he does not have to do much advertising. He reckons his big red trucks loaded with processed and crushed metal products, and word of mouth, are all the advertising he needs to keep this business providing a service throughout the south, and keeping his competitors honest. And he needs a bit of spare time to race his bright red rally car..
PHOTOS: Iron men – Scrap metal merchant Otago Metal Industries has established a car crushing branch and is a major Dunedin supplier of hired skips.
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Agriculture sector a speciality • From page 30 The high level of skill we require to complete such jobs is also used on our rural projects.” The cowshed design is a case in point. It is an officially registered design and cannot be copied by other companies. Trevor Barfoote, who has around 30 years of building experience under his belt, started his company almost by accident. His uncle asked him to build a cow shed, and it was such a success he carried on. Barfoote Construction has been operating in Northland since 1989. Based in Whangarei and Otago, the company works on building
structures for clients in the commercial, industrial, infrastructure, agricultural and specialist residential markets. It is supported by Barfoote Contracting, an excavation business run by Trevor’s brother Terry, and Gareth Barfoote Trucking, a trucking company run by another brother. The construction company employs a multiskilled workforce capable of undertaking precast concrete, earthworks and roofing in-house. It employs its own engineers, project managers and trade-qualified carpenters. Although the company does do commercial and industrial builds, the agriculture sector remains its specialty.
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