Paul Miller started recycling before many people even knew what recycling was.
Paul Miller started recycling before many people even knew what recycling was.
Living on a farm on Burton Windsor Road just west of state Route 608, Miller sold some scrap metal to a guy he knew and it started him thinking.
“I was amazed at what it brought,” he said, sitting in his office at Honest Scales Recycling.
In 1996, he formed the business with a silent partner and started learning the process by which old junk becomes new money.
Today, the yard full of residential, commercial and industrial scrapped metal resounds with the racket of cars, trucks and trailers dumping loads after being weighed. Tow-motors roar around and other equipment move and sort materials by type of metal. The cacophony is ear-numbing.
Scrap metal waiting to be sold and transported occupies nearly all of the 1.5-acre parcel, as the aerial photo in Paul’s office showed.
As the only commercial scrap metal recycler in the county, the demand for Honest Scales’ services has grown, he said.
Meanwhile, the space to handle the influx of materials and the ability to get the scrap to market hit a bottleneck.
A few years ago, Paul and his son, Marty Miller, who manages HSR’s operations, took steps to branch out and expand the business.
“Since COVID, it’s been hard to find trucks to haul our scrap,” Marty said.
The market price of steel, copper, aluminum and brass can vary, he said. Being able to get loads from the yard in Middlefield Township to the buyer can be a race against time.
Rather than contract with a hauler for the service, the Millers formed a sister company, CBM Roll Off Services, buying Dumpsters and a truck to haul them.
A non-Amish partner helped HSR acquire the truck, Paul said.
“We have to be able to catch the market,” Marty said as a huge Dumpster was being pulled up onto a truck driven by CBM driver Quinton Grundy.
Besides hauling scrap metal to market, Paul said the Dumpsters, which hold 20 to 40 yards of material, can be rented out for demolitions and house clean-outs and trash, all going to a landfill.
The space issue was addressed earlier this year when the Millers bought about 3 acres to the east of the yard.
“In the future, we plan to build over there and get the traffic away from the house. We want to get the cars out of the private drive,” Paul said.
His vision is to move his center of operations to the east side of the weight scales so they can process the non-ferrous materials — copper, aluminum and brass — on the new parcel away from his home on the west side of the existing scrap yard.
“We don’t know the size — we’re meeting with the architect this week,” Paul said during the interview July 22.
Middlefield Township is not zoned, but Paul said he will be working with the Geauga County Building Department and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency to meet their regulations.
“I think Geauga County and Middlefield Township is a great place to do business,” he said.
The operation is a family-run business with about 14 full-time and part-time employees — a number that may grow as HSR and CBM grow, Paul said.
Besides Marty, Paul’s two daughters, Katie Ann and Loma Mae, are involved day-to-day. Katie Ann runs pay-out and keeps track of sales and Loma Mae operates the scale and answers the phone for CBM, Paul said.
“Without Marty and my daughters, I’d be lost,” he said, adding, however, he doesn’t take credit for his success.
“We give glory to God for everything we have,” he said. “It’s not my business, it’s God’s business. He gave it to me to take care of. We’ve been very blessed.”
