SIMVIC is a company that buys and processes scrap metal. It is located at Unit 4, Fordwater Trading Estate, Ford Road, Chertsey, KT16 8HG. The founders of the company are Radek Arasniewicz and his brother-in-law Darek Arasniewicz. They both come from Poland originally. 

The beginnings of the company are humble. It started in 2008 when they came to England. In the beginning, both were driving the only van they had to collect scrap metal. Their experience with scrap metal comes from Poland, where they had already established a similar business. At first, they drove around London to collect scrap and took it from there to Peterborough and then back to London again. The business grew slowly, soon they bought more vans and rented their own site in West Drayton. Here they stored the scrap metal and used the space to treat it. In those days, the price of scrap metal was better than it is today. An accountant helped them in administrative matters. After some time, they had to leave the West Drayton location and find a new home for their business. In 2011 they found land here in Chertsey, which they rented until 2022, and then they bought it. The company employs about twenty permanent employees and a few office workers. The company’s offices are very well organized and use the latest technology.                                                                              

I am talking to Radek Arasniewicz, one of the owners and a director of the company. His wife and daughter live in Poland, and he swaps places on a monthly basis with Darek, his brother-in-law and business partner. So, he spends one month at the company in Chertsey, and then travels to stay with his family in Poland and also takes care of the company in Poland for a month.  At that time Darek comes to England and runs the company here. This exchange takes place every month.  

How big is the area of your company? 

To put it literally, I would say, the area is about the same size as a football field.

How did you get involved in the scrap metal business? 

It just happened. I suppose that one of the reasons was, that we had already established the same business in Poland. In Poland, it is more focused on the purchase of steel, so the process of the business is different.

What kind of scrap do you collect?

Here in England, we collect and buy copper, aluminium, bronze, cars for scrap, cables, steel, brass, lead. In fact, we buy all ferrous and non-ferrous metals.                                                                     

Who is your main supplier of industrial scrap?

Our regular suppliers of scrap are demolition companies as well as garbage collection companies, like B&K or PM Skips, which operate locally. Nevertheless, finding new suppliers is a constant endeavour. We advertise a lot on the Internet for this.

What is the procedure for collecting scrap metal in your company?

We currently have three trucks and ten vans. We drive them to our suppliers, where the goods are loaded. This is often done with the help of special cranes or forklifts. Depending on the circumstances, we work together with suppliers when loading trucks. We all try to make it as smooth a process as possible.

Do you have private scrap suppliers?

We have a lot of private professional suppliers like plumbers or electricians, and we strongly encourage the local community to come and sell us their accumulated scrap metal too.

Can people like me, private individuals, come to you and deliver their scrap metal? For example, an old washing machine or an old car?

Of course! however, we buy everything as scrap. Therefore, the prices are the same as that for scrap metal.

 How much can one get for an old washing machine or an old car?

Probably around £5 for an old washing machine, and around £150 for a small old car

Is finding new scrap metal suppliers and buyers easy?

It is not easy, there are many companies in this sphere. It all depends on the right price. You have to be very sensitive to the market and be able to set the best prices for the materials you buy or sell. I do all the pricing. Our prices are always listed on our website. In fact, the success of this business lies in the ability to give and get the right price. This is a very fluid business and both the prices and the demand for different types of material are constantly changing. For example, China needs copper, but in the summer season due to floods out there, China stops its operations and does not need as much copper. This, in turn, affects the price of copper and the price decreases due to the lack of demand for it. 

Please describe the metal recycling process in your company.

80% of the material delivered to us is physically examined. The materials need to be properly prepared, sorted and cleaned. We have many machines for this purpose. Some machines separate metal from plastic, and then the plastic is turned into granules that can be also, like metal, reused again. Other machines cut the metal into smaller pieces.                                                                                        

We also sell used parts from BMW and Mercedes. This aspect plays a significant role in our business operations. The parts can be bought directly from us, or we sell them on eBay. 

Do you trade internationally?

Yes, we do, nevertheless, most of our trade takes place in England, some 80% you could say. The

English companies we trade with are such as Tandom, SIMS Metal, EMR, Crow Metal, ROBA Scrap Metal, City Metal and many others. The remaining 20% we mainly operate in Poland. For example, we supply recycled derived copper to the world-renowned company KGHM, known as a major international producer of copper and silver. The head office of KGHM is in Lublin.

Which metal is in greatest demand?  

It depends on the season and prices, and it often changes.

Which metal is the most expensive? 

Copper is the most expensive.

Would you agree with my statement that scrap metal is no longer just scrap as most of this scrap material can be recycled, the people who sell scrap metal earn money for it and the scrap metal gets a second life?

That is right. Scrap can be recycled, and you can earn money from its sale.

How does metal recycling protect the environment?

Collecting and recycling scrap protects the environment from pollution, as it is not sent to landfills. We also save the Earth’s natural resources.

What do you like to do when you’re not working? I understand you work very hard.

I like cycling, swimming and boxing.

Where is your favourite place to go on holiday?

I really like going to Norway. It’s quiet, peaceful and very beautiful there. 

Radek, I really appreciate and thank you for your initiative to create a company that is needed so much nowadays, as well as for your hard work and dedication to this work. I would also like to thank your whole team for their hard work and enthusiasm.   

                                                                                                                                               Thank you for taking the time to talk to us.  

                                                                                           

When I was a teenager in the late-1960s I can clearly remember our home’s rubbish bin. It was a metal bucket that stood in the corner of the kitchen. The bin was emptied about once a week, if I remember correctly. I would take the bucket and I then emptied it into a large barrel that was placed just under a tall poplar tree that stood outside our home. Sometimes the rubbish would overflow the barrel and would end up lying all around it on the ground.

When the actual rubbish, whatever it was, and it was not a lot when compared to today’s, was in the bucket, it became rubbish and belonged to another world. Once in the bucket, the rubbish was not taken out again because it was rubbish. Only in some exceptional cases one would dip back into the rubbish to salvage something that had been thrown away by mistake. Even then, one would wonder if it would be used again as if nothing happened. Clearly, there was a rubbish line and one practically had nothing to do with things that went beyond that line. That line was in one’s home, and it was your rubbish bucket.

I remember feeling sorry for the man who used to come once a month or two to collect the rubbish from outside our home. He would arrive with a horse pulling a trailer. It would take him about an hour or more to load the trailer with the help of a garden fork. The rubbish was collected from the barrel and the ground around it. That was his job, and one did not particularly talk to the rubbish man. However, it was different when Mr Hamerski*, the farm that was just on the outskirts of my hometown owner, attended to the rubbish himself. Many considered him almost a hero because he did a good job of getting rid of all the rubbish himself. These were my thoughts as a young child and then as a teenager. Today, I admire the people who collect the rubbish, arriving in their magnificent machines and collecting all that waste. They work so hard, and unfortunately, the smell coming out of the bins can often be unpleasant and quite difficult to cope with, so it is a very difficult, challenging and important job to do.

The previous way of treating rubbish as rubbish has lasted with me for a long time. Once thrown away, it was rubbish. I had nothing to do with it and it definitely was not my problem. I also did not need to consider if my rubbish caused a dilemma. There was lots of freedom because rubbish was rubbish. The world felt big and endless. One could have as much rubbish as one wanted, but in reality, there was not that much of it. In Poland in the late-1960s, shopping was most often not wrapped, there were no plastic bags, and there was no custom of gift wrapping.

I had a great shock on my first visit to Britain in the 1970s to see how many English people would freely throw their rubbish, such as empty drink cans or crisp packets, straight on the ground—be it on the underground carriages, trains or just on the street. That was simply the way that it was done. I never could understand that solution with litter. Back in my hometown of Poznan, Poland, it was a very bad manner to throw any waste on the ground and it was placed instead into a rubbish bin. Since living in England from 1976, I have never deliberately thrown rubbish onto the ground. I have always felt very conscious about minding my rubbish throughout my life.

I remember sometime around the 1990s, about 30 years ago, people from Germany started to suggest separating our rubbish, depending on what it was, into separate containers. Initially, I thought that it was a bizarre idea and even a little bit ridiculous.

Things are so different today! I am the first to scrupulously attend to every piece of rubbish that I have to throw away. In fact, I am not so sure that the things that I need to throw away are really rubbish anymore. Bottles and jars, and paper and card need to be recycled. Plastic needs to be segregated between the recycle bin and general waste bin, depending on its type. Food goes into the food bin and garden waste goes into the garden waste bin. One thing is for sure, there is so much more rubbish generated today than back in the 1960s. I sometimes feel pain seeing all of the plastic packagings that I simply have to purchase with the products that I need, even if I am very selective.

A lot of our rubbish today is either recycled or burned in modern waste incinerators, where it is turned into electricity and waste. The ashes that come from the incinerators are further utilised in the building industry or road building (for example).

At this point, a question springs to mind: has this been a rubbish revolution or is it just a shift of the rubbish line? Looking back, I can see that the rubbish line has shifted from the rubbish bucket in my home to the rubbish dump site. After throwing our scrupulously segregated rubbish away today, be it in our home or directly at the waste dump site, only then we do not deal with it anymore. We are kind of helpless and depend on others to do the right thing with the large amounts of bad rubbish that we are daily forced to generate, and it is not really the case” out of sight, out of mind”.

• Wacław Hamerski “The more you learn to do something in your life, the more you will be a human being.”