English class questions

Changes to regulations on recycling and a demand for raw materials have combined to push up worth in the business of rubbish

Rust, junk and bent metal are proving a rich seam for scrap merchants, who have become millionaires thanks to soaring metal prices and tightening of rules on recycling.

The typical British scrap merchant is now an affluent businessmen, the cart and horse abandoned in favour of a Bentley Turbo. Dealers' yards now contain high-tech salvage machines capable of stripping a car down to its components in seconds.

The largest scrap metal merchant in the UK is worth a staggering pounds 1.1 billion and family-owned firms across the country are being inundated with buyout offers from ambitious rivals and private equity groups.