TB Recyclers
Web Development
2018 – Present
Taking a family scrap metal business from invisible online to a lightning-fast platform serving four locations.
TB Recyclers is a family-run scrap metal recycling business that started on a plot in Cullinan, east of Pretoria. For over two decades they built their reputation entirely through word of mouth — no website, no email, no digital footprint at all. But as the business grew and expanded beyond Cullinan, the absence of any online presence became a liability. Customers in new locations had no way to find them, and competitors with professional websites were capturing the search traffic that should have been theirs.
We built their first-ever website on WordPress to get them online quickly, then migrated to a fully static Astro JS site when performance became a priority. We also set up and continue to manage their business email infrastructure — giving a family operation the professional digital backbone it needed to scale from one branch to four.
A quarter century of business with zero digital presence
For 25 years, TB Recyclers operated entirely offline. No website, no business email, no Google listing worth mentioning. Meanwhile, every major competitor in the Pretoria scrap metal market had established web presence — SA Metal Group, South Africa's largest recycler with over 100 years of history, dominates search nationally. Closer to home, MGM Metals in Centurion, Mula Metals in Pretoria, and Gauteng Metal Recyclers all had professional websites making it easy for customers to find pricing, locations, and contact details. Anyone searching for scrap metal recyclers in Pretoria found everyone except TB Recyclers.
The problem compounded as the business expanded beyond Cullinan. Opening branches in East-Lynne, Eersterust, and Rosslyn meant entering areas where they had no existing reputation — and with no website, no way for new customers to discover them. They were expanding their physical footprint while remaining completely invisible digitally.
WordPress first, then Astro JS for speed and simplicity
We started with WordPress to get TB Recyclers online as fast as possible. It served its purpose — the business finally had a web presence — but WordPress brought overhead that didn't match the simplicity of the operation: plugin updates, security patches, hosting costs, and page load times that left room for improvement. When the client flagged performance as a concern, we recommended a complete rebuild.
We rebuilt the entire site using Astro JS — a static-first framework that generates pure HTML and CSS with zero client-side JavaScript by default. The result is a single-page site that loads in 125 milliseconds and covers everything a customer needs: how the scrap metal process works, all four branch locations with maps and direct contact numbers, an FAQ section, and a contact area linking every branch on Google Maps. We also set up professional business email on their domain, replacing personal addresses with branded ones — a small change that made a significant difference in how the business presented itself to suppliers and partners.
125ms load time, zero complexity
The Astro-powered static site scores 95 overall on Lighthouse with a 125ms LCP, 100 on Best Practices, and 92 on SEO — giving a 25-year family business the same caliber of web performance as enterprise competitors, while remaining simple enough that every customer interaction starts and ends on one fast page.
95 overall Lighthouse score, 125ms LCP, and 100 Best Practices — all from one fast, simple Astro JS page.
Before OpenIdle, we had nothing online — no website, no email, nothing. They got us up and running on WordPress first, then rebuilt everything faster with Astro. Now customers find us on Google, every branch has its details right there, and we look as professional as the big players. They also handle our email, which is one less thing to worry about.
Before OpenIdle we had nothing online. They built us a fast website, set up our email, and now customers find us on Google across all four branches.