Corporate history, European and global recycling operations

Sims was founded in 1917, four years after founder Albert Sims emigrated from London to Sydney, Australia. Albert Sims started collecting scrap on his bicycle, growing the business to have a presence in every Australian state by the 1930s. Expansion to Europe and North America then followed, culminating in a 2008 merger between Sims Group and American scrap metal recycling company, Metal Management to form Sims Metal Management Limited.

Sims Metal Management has a global turnover of over £5.8 billion from over 260 operations on five continents employing over 6,300 people worldwide.

Sims Recycling Solutions was formed in 2002 in the UK to address the growing issue of e-waste. Following natural growth and a number of mergers and acquisitions, the business now operates from over 40 sites on five continents, processing over 475,000 tonnes of waste electronic equipment each year.

Our primary service offers materials recycling, where end of life televisions, PCs, fridges, mobile phones and many other types of e-waste are recovered for recycling of metals, plastic and glass.

In 2004, IT Asset Recovery services were created within Sims Recycling Solutions. To achieve this the business began acquiring dedicated expertise within the electronic asset recovery and refurbishment industry. Based around a bespoke, advanced asset tracking package, our asset recovery service has rapidly grown to offer a secure IT equipment re-use consultancy and service to major clients around the globe.

In 2010, the electronics recycling services assets of Wincanton were acquired, adding two large WEEE recycling facilities and two WEEE sortation centres to the UK portfolio.

In addition to the UK WEEE (waste electrical and electronic equipment) recycling centres, Sims Recycling Solutions operates 14 further facilities on continental Europe. This includes one each in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic,  Hungary, Poland and Sweden, three in the Netherlands and four in Germany. In the Netherlands Sims Recycling Solutions has specialist facilities for recycling cartridges from printers and photocopiers and cathode ray tubes from computer monitors and televisions.

The combined output from these operations is the recovery and recycling of over 300,000 tonnes of electronic waste each year.

Through strategic partnerships with other European recyclers, Sims Recycling Solutions can offer clients WEEE disposal services in 20 countries throughout Europe. Visit the EU website to find out more.

Sims Recycling Solutions has 14 e-scrap recycling centres in the USA and Canada and electronics recycling operations in Australia, India, New Zealand and Singapore.

A range of strategic partnerships enable Sims Recycling Solutions to offer e-waste disposal services in many Asian, Middle Eastern, African and South American countries.

During 2009, the company expanded its operations into the continent of Africa, based in Durban, South Africa.

Further information can be found on the global Sims Recycling Solutions website.