SCRAPMEN.
They've been turning the base metal of our industrial and domestic waste into gold for generations.

But now they've hit the big time.

Once derided and scorned as glorified rag and bone men, the one-time Steptoe and Son outfits are looked on with envy as they ride the wave of a raw materials boom and make more in a week than their parents earned in a lifetime.

The big yards are earning millions, the small yards are booming and the steel industry can't get enough raw material as China, India and now Turkey take all the steel they can make.

There's even a decent drink in it for the man with a van weighing in his cookers, radiators and spare wheels.

Everybody's happy, as Arthur Daley might have said.

At around £200 a tonne the global price of steel scrap is double what it was five years ago. Non-ferrous metal prices have quadrupled from £75 a tonne to £300 a tonne in six months thanks to unprecedented demand.

The UK metal recycling business is estimated to be worth £1.9 billion and 8.2 million tonnes of metal is retrieved every year.

So valuable is the brass among the muck that 24-hour surveillance cameras cover most yards to spot thieves and dodgy dealers.

They'll even tunnel under the walls to get inside.

"They will try anything to get in," says 55-year-old Robin Turner of Walter Heselwood Ltd of Stevenson Road, Attercliffe, Sheffield's biggest independent scrap dealer who runs the yard with his wife Gail and 26-year-old son Aiden.

"They climb over the walls, tunnel under the walls and try and hide in the yard. We have spotted them on camera trying to get in 10 minutes after we have locked up for the night.

"We sit at home and watch them on CCTV – it can be quite funny."

This year the company expects to shift 40,000 tonnes of waste – 30 per cent up on last year – with turnover up from £3.7m to £10m.

The scrap industry has always attracted it's fair share of wide-boys and fly-by-nights but the legitimate yards are now more closely regulated than ever with strict new environmental rules to follow.

"This business was little more than a rag and bone business when it was started as a metal collection round by Walter Heselwood 61 years ago based next to the old chip shop on Attercliffe Road," says Walter's grandaughter Gail Turner.

"This is one of the oldest forms of recycling," adds Robin.

"Without the metal recycling industry Sheffield could not have become the great steelmaking city it was.

"We are primary recyclers.

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