Molycop acquires recycling business JLW

Molycop has announced the purchase of JLW Services, a waste management company specialising in hard-to-recycle recyclables such as mattresses and tyres.

Molycop is best known for the manufacture and supply of grinding media for mining, with other business in mining chemicals and rail consumables. It is one of JLW’s leading customers, and uses products such as old car tyres in “Green Steel,” developed in collaboration with UNSW Professor and inventor Veena Sahajwalla.

JLW’s business includes mobile shredding equipment, a fleet of trucks, and a processing site at Cootamundra.

Molycop’s President Michael Parker said scrap steel from mattress wire and tyres from JLW had been used in steelmaking at Molycop’s Newcastle, NSW site over the years. 

“The strategic rationale behind purchasing this business” was to move deeper into the circular economy,” said Parker, “recycling, decarbonising our industry and promoting sustainable manufacturing.

“As well as increasing our ferrous scrap and recycled carbon capabilities – essential raw materials in the electric arc furnace steelmaking process – this purchase allows Molycop to provide responsible waste and recycling services for challenging waste streams for our customers, and the community more broadly”.

JLW would be known as Molycop 360, the company said in a statement, all its 25 employees would continue on, and founder Jamie Walmsley would head the new division as its general manager.

“After founding the business in 2014 with my wife, Leah, it’s incredibly satisfying to see it bought by one of our most valued clients,” said Walmsley.

“I look forward to becoming part of the Molycop Australia team, as we seek to double the recycling plant’s revenue over next few years.”

Molycop was formerly part of the collapsed iron ore and steel group Arrium. It celebrated a centenary in 2018.

Picture: JLW Services

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