About Metro Metals
Metro Metals is a family business, started in 1958 under the railway arches on Ashfield Road, Burnley. Since then, Metro Metals has rapidly grown and is now the largest metal recycler in Burnley. In 2000, Metro Metals had outgrown its town centre premises, resulting in a £2 Million investment in a brand new, state of the art recycling facility. The new recycling site is fully compliant with all current environmental legislation.
A rainwater harvesting system has even been installed so we even recycle water as well as scrap metal! This system recently received a highly commended certificate at the Lancashire Telegraph Awards 2006 and commended certificate from the Business Environment Association Awards 2006. Metro Metals currently employs 6 full time staff and 3 part time staff.
What do Metro Metals do?
The traditional image of a ‘scrap man’ has over the years been portrayed by the media as ‘dodgy looking bloke with a couple of Alsatian dogs’. The industry also suffers from NIMBYism. We looked unsuccessfully at 4 other sites before we found this one.
With it's state-of-the-art premises, Metro Metals hopes to go some way to change that preconceived notion and put metal recycling on the platform it deserves.
Metro Metals collects, processes and recycles all grades of scrap metal.These are waste products that people have discarded and no longer require, such as washing machines, cookers, cars, small items of copper, brass and lead. We also undertake demolition, ranging from small to large demolition projects, involving in excess of 1000 tonnes.
Metro Metals has opened a new facility (an investment of £100K) to recycle cars known as ELV’s (End of Life Vehicles) to comply with recent EU legislation. This sets recycling targets and guarantees that all fluids in cars are removed correctly and recycled properly. We also have a direct link to the DVLA which enables us to issue ‘Certificates of Destruction’. This replaces the old system of sending in the old log book to the DVLA. In other words once a car is brought here it is guaranteed to be disposed of correctly. All the paperwork is also carried out so the last owner does not have anything else to do.
In 2006 Metro Metals recycled over 25000 tonnes on a turn-over of over £3million. The majority of our products are exported to countries such as Spain, Turkey and the Far East.
We are pleased to offer information to schools, colleges and the community about vehicle recycling, a recent visit by university students was a great success (read about it here).
