Brothers sell Hawaiian firm to Schnitzer

Hawaii – Sandy and Don Shadrow have sold their Hawaiian company, Maui-based SOS Metals Island Recycling, to US firm Schnitzer Steel Industries which also operates a scrap metal processing facility on Oahu, the third largest of the Hawaiian Islands. Brothers from Los Angeles, the Shadrows have been in the business of recycling scrap metals of all types – including jet engines – for over 30 years. When both men bought homes on Maui, they recognised a huge demand for an efficient scrap service. ‘We drove around Maui and saw hundreds of abandoned appliances and cars,’ Sandy recalls. ‘It was a mess.’

In March 2005, SOS Metals Island Recycling opened for business on a three-acre plot at the Central Maui Base yard. The site included a 12 000-square-foot enclosed warehouse, a high-speed car crusher and an Envirorac System for safe separation of fluids from old vehicles. SOS invested millions of US dollars and developed cutting-edge environmental controls to keep the site safe and to eliminate pollution.

In 2006, the county signed a contract with SOS covering the processing of derelict vehicles and appliances dumped along Maui’s roads. ‘SOS cut the price charged to recycle an auto and appliance to less than half of what the county was paying before we opened,’ states Sandy Shadrow.