Brampton's
Sims Recycling Solutions, an electronics recycling company, has become the first in Canada to receive certification under the
OHSAS 18001 standard for workplace safety. The international standard recognizes compliance with risk assessments and appropriate safety precautions dealing with every single job function in the plant.
Company President Cindy Coutts says the certification is an important step -- ensuring green jobs are safe jobs at the Bramption plant -- for a rapidly growing company in a very rapidly growing field. "We are a discard nation. People want newer, better, prettier electronics products all the time," Coutts says, resulting in some 225,000 tonnes of waste electronics in Canada every year. That's where Sims comes in.
Founded in 2003 by the mining firm
Noranda, Sims Recycling Solutions was envisioned as an "above-ground mine," Coutts says, extracting resources from discarded electronics. Since then, it has grown from being a single-person operation to employ 100 as it mines an ever-growing mountain of computers, hand-held devices and other electronics from across the country. According to Coutts, clients include municipalities, businesses and governments concerned about data security.
In 2007, the company was sold to
Sims Metal Management, an $8 billion Australian company that is the world's largest electronics recycler. The parent company was named one of the 100 most sustainable corporations in the world in 2009 and 2010 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Cindy Coutts, President, Sims Recycling Solutions Canada