"My personal goal is to try and achieve 25 percent growth year-on-year for the recycling solutions division," Graham Davy, the UK-based managing director of SRS told Reuters.

"Sims Group globally as a whole receives around 8 to 9 million tonnes of scrap annually, typically end-of-life consumer products such as cars and household goods like fridges, washing machines and cookers and industrial equipment."

The final result taking into account the shrinkage factor -- discarding the non-metal components -- means the production of around 6.5 million tonnes of metal to meet strong demand which has pushed metal prices to record highs over the last two years.

Davy admits the possibility of economic slowdown in the United States could dent demand for metals around the world, but adds that much of the demand comes from the need to build and update infrastructure around the world.

SIMS's main recycled products include steel, aluminium, zinc, copper and stainless steel.

MEETING DEMAND

The company helps meet demand for metal used in cars, construction steel and electrical goods in emerging economies.

"We sell to many markets including China, India, Germany, Spain, Italy, the UK, Australia, Turkey, Malaysia and, of course, North America," Davy said.

"Around 55 percent of our revenue comes from North America, the rest is evenly split between Europe and the rest of the world."

Davy said new legislation will force manufacturing companies to take responsibility for recycling their products.

"If you wanted to scrap your car, on today's market I would pay you for it. But if you want to recycle your vacuum cleaner I have to charge you because more work is required to extract a lower value of materials," he said.

"That's why there is new legislation because without it, there is no economic incentive to recycle lower value materials typically found in old household electrical equipment."

The company has significantly increased the amounts of material it recycles and that can be seen in the bottom line.

For the 12 months to end June SIMS Group, 19.99 percent owned by Japan's Mitsui & Co reported a 29 percent rise in profits to US$254.4 million and sales revenues up 48 percent to US$5.55 billion.

Over the same period SRS contributed around 16 percent to Sims earnings, mainly through recycling.

Earlier this week the company said it expects earnings in the first July-September quarter to be around US$50 million, but that earnings in the second quarter would be higher.

The company also said it was considering an acquisition, though discussions were incomplete and confidential.

"With a fair wind, in 12 months we'll be larger than we are today ... growth is easier when times are good," Davy said.