Top billing: acquisitions and alliances have helped push Metro Waste Paper Recovery Inc., Toronto, to the top in Canada - Company Profile

Recycling Today, Feb, 2003 by Myron Love

Almost 25 years ago, when Al and Anthony Metauro first dreamed of going into the garbage and scrap paper collection business, they found the cost of admission to be too much for their wallets. Today, thanks to an entrepreneurial spirit, a hands-on approach and a major alliance forged early last year, the Metauros preside over what is almost certainly the largest scrap paper recovery company in Canada and one of the dominant players in the industry in North America.

"We started with the two of us--we were 18 and 21--and one pick-up truck collecting cardboard from Toronto garbage bins," says Al Metauro, the president and CEO of Toronto-based Metro Waste Paper Recovery Inc.

Since that humble debut, much has changed. "With the purchase of Norampac Inc.'s and ETL Recycling Services Inc.'s western Canadian business, we have extended our business across Canada and tripled the number of plants we operate to 15. We have over 400 employees and last year we recorded gross sales of $140 million (about $90 million U.S.)," Al comments.

"Our growth has been unbelievable over the past 10 to 12 years," adds Gary Sexton, the company's vice-president responsible for materials and marketing. "We have continued to grow both through acquisitions and revenue from end markets. We need to make money regardless of market conditions, and we do. We adjust our buying and selling accordingly, as long as the margins are reasonable.

"The business environment has been stable over the past few years," he notes. "The last major spike was in 1995 when some commodity prices went off the charts. Since then, there have only been small movements up and down."

Sexton reports that Metro Waste anticipates greater sales this year thanks to the acquisitions and to the company's new online buying program. Www.cashforbaledpaper.com, he says, is both a marketing tool and a commodities buying site. It allows customers to check prices in a given area and to sell commodities online to Metro Waste at the posted prices.

"If an individual has cardboard to sell, for example, and likes our prices, all he or she has to do is push the sell button," Sexton says. "We pick up the load and pay the customer within seven days. Our industry is still somewhat old-fashioned in the way we do business. Our Web site takes us into the 21st century."

RIDING THE RECYCLING WAVE

When the Metauro brothers began in 1979, their first customer was Atlantic Packaging, Toronto. After a time, they bought a small waste hauling company. Then in 1983, they took over a defunct Toronto-area scrap paper dealer.

"Recycling wasn't such a big deal yet," says Al Metauro. "We saw an opportunity to make money collecting paper."

Thus was born Metro Waste Paper Recovery Inc. The new company collected paper from print shops and other Toronto businesses, sorted and baled it. "We figured out the market," Metauro says. "We ended up selling our material to Scott Paper in Quebec. We couldn't find many customers for our high grade paper in and around Toronto."

In the mid- to late-1980s, Metro Waste developed a relationship with Paperboard Industries. The latter began buying increasing volumes of scrap paper in a variety of grades for use in making boxboard. With the increased demand and sales, Metro Waste was able to move to larger premises.

"Paperboard Industries agreed to have us do all the baling," Metauro says. "We bought a larger baler. By the late 1980s, we were picking up new accounts almost every week. We established our own industrial blue box program. It was a good fit for the landfill dilemma."

Gary Sexton came aboard in 1989. A friend of the Metauro brothers since high school, he had been involved in sales and marketing. "I could see how Metro Waste was growing," he says. "I thought it was a good opportunity and we would be a good fit."

By the early 1990s, Metro Waste had eight trucks. The company also had started an office paper pick-up program with many of the office towers in downtown Toronto among its clientele, selling most of these grades to tissue mills in Quebec.

BEYOND TORONTO

In 1993, Metro Waste started an operation in Ottawa with the encouragement and assistance of Peter McMahon, currently the president of the company's Ottawa division. McMahon got to know Al Metauro while each was working in the recycling industry in Toronto.

"I was familiar with Metro Waste as a buyer and a competitor," McMahon says. "I knew Al and liked his business philosophy."

"We started from scratch in Ottawa," Metauro says of the Ottawa division. "There were some long established companies there who collected materials from the federal government offices. We snuck our way in slowly and built our operation. The competition in Ottawa wasn't as fierce as it was in Toronto."

McMahon notes that Metro Waste's Ottawa office processes from 10,000 to 12,500 tons of material per month. Through its contract with the city and its Black Box program, the company collects all the curbside recyclable material. Metro also contracts with the federal government to recycle office paper generated in government offices in the Greater Ottawa region.