ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — Bob Antsey says his business is growing quickly and running smoothly, and he’s working on something big.
Anstey’s Newco Metal and Auto Recycling received a $1-million repayable loan from the federal government through the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) to expand operations at the business’s Foxtrap location. The federal money will help renovate the site, add office space and computers, and help employ an addition 10 people, on top of the approximately 100 people employed at the nine Newco locations across the province.
Anstey says the company recently broke ground on a tenth, 20-acre location in Labrador City — but he’s not done yet.
“It’s coming. It’ll be in recycling. There’s a lot more stuff to be done in the future. Our children, compared to our parents, have a lot more recycling put into their head than what our grandparents had. They were of a generation where you threw it out in the back, threw it in the woods, you didn’t care about it,” he said.
Anstey didn’t get more detailed on the next plan, only to say it’s not solely focused on plastics.
Anstey led a tour of the facility on Thursday, joined by federal minister of economic development Melanie Joly and Avalon MP Ken MacDonald.
Newco takes scrap metal from landfills throughout the province, in addition to what people drop off to their sites. The recovered metals — largely aluminum and steel — are exported internationally, with China being its largest international partner. Shipments have gone as far as India, Turkey and Taiwan, as well.
Anstey says his business put a bounty on scrap metal, in hopes of leaving a cleaner world for the next generation.
“We clean up every landfill from Port Aux Basques to Lab City to St. Anthony. We don’t want to leave a legacy that we made a mess. Our policy is to take it, clean it and export it,” he said.
“The carbon footprint of reusing old aluminum or old stainless steel, it’s a lot less carbon footprint to regenerate to make new stainless steel. There’s so many different components that come together to do that.”
