Golden rule: fair treatment, courtesy and honesty are at the heart of the McAvoy family's Industrial Metal Recycling company - Cover Story

Recycling Today, July, 2003 by Brian Taylor

Having made a commitment to enter the scrap metals business, it was clear that the McAvoys were going to need a niche. Based on their initial real estate clean-up experiences, offering a combination abandoned site clean-up and scrap disposition service was a logical choice.

Events in the scrap market and regulatory climate steered Industrial Metal toward an additional clean-up specialty: white goods. "In 1989 in the Northeast, there was what could be called a 'white goods crisis,' when environmental-related issues curtailed the shredding of old appliances," notes Peter.

Although shredding plants stopped accepting obsolete refrigerators and other appliances, communities in New England continued to collect them. "They were accumulating near town landfills, sometimes in piles of 2,000 tons or more," recalls Peter.

Industrial Metal Recycling was able to offer a service to towns where it drained hazardous fluids and otherwise prepared white goods for baling in a portable Sierra machine, then shipped the scrap to awaiting markets in Montreal. "We drained the oil and placed roll-off containers so nothing hit the ground," says Peter.

Current Industrial Metal chief financial officer Wayne Bowers is also trained as an environmental chemist, which helps the company maintain its competitive advantage in clean-up and proper material handling techniques.

The combination service and scrap preparation task was similar to the abandoned site clean-up niche for which Industrial Metal Recycling was becoming increasingly well known.

INSPIRING CONFIDENCE. Since its creation in 1986, Industrial Metal Recycling has enjoyed growth as a company by any yardstick used. The company has grown in volume of materials handled; the size of its customer base; the amount of processing equipment it uses; number of employees; annual revenue; and the number of facilities from which it operates (from the original one to four).

Peter McAvoy credits the Golden Rule preached by his father as the cornerstone of the company's success. From his company's first clean-up projects, Peter and his co-workers always made sure to leave behind a spotless job site. "My father always said give at least $1.10 worth of work for every $1.00 someone gives you. We made sure the people were satisfied after we left."

Positive referrals from property owners and municipal public works officials among each other generated a steady stream of business for Industrial Metal Recycling cleanup projects at what Peter calls "old bone yards" throughout Maine.

In 1990, IMR purchased the accounts and inventory of the former Brewer Junk Co. in the town of Brewer, relocating the operation to a piece of property in nearby Bangor, Maine's second-largest city. IMR outfitted the yard with a 380-ton Sierra shear baler and expanded the operations to adjacent land parcels. It now ranks as the company's highest-volume yard.

During the Brewer Junk Co. clean up, thousands of old battery casings were found from a battery breaking operation conducted by the former owners. IMR worked with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to work with other potential Superfund PRPs (potentially responsible parties) to voluntarily pool funds and clean up the property.