Your Questions About Recycling

The Expert answers:

Usually these items are paid by weight. Whether your local recycling warehouse handles steel will need to be asked. If not, try a junk yard.

The Expert answers:

Paint the front of your neighbor’s house for $250 if she buys the paint and brushes.

Organize neighbor’s garages for $10 apiece.

Find an elderly person who lives alone and needs help cooking and shopping.

Caddy at the local golf course. You go home with money in your pocket every day. You have to take proof that you are 14.

The Expert answers:

You can make money recycling anywhere. There are some really big scrap yards in texas. Do a google search for
scrap yards in your area. I started out going to auto salvsges and paying them to let me pick scrap copper wire from
their junk cars. Then i’d take it home and burn it to clean it. Then i’d sell it to the local scrap yard. I’d pay $8 per
garbage bag full, which would equal $30 to $40 worth after i sold it. Just use your imagination and you can really
cashin. I’ve doing cell phone recycling for a while now. It’s probably the most unknown recycling business right
now. A person can make alot of money in this business just by picking up old cell phones. I stumbled upon it in a
cell phone recycling review. I havnt made the $60,000 a month they claim, but i made $687 my first week. Thats
not bad at all. If you’re interested in it, i’d recommend checking out the insiders secrets to recycling old cell phones.
Theres a link at this blog-
recyclecellphonesplus.blogspot.com

The Expert answers:

Unless there is a deposit on the bottles, nothing you’re saving is worth anything. Sorry but that’s the truth.

EDIT chris

You’re average Pickup load will get about 9 mpg so say fuel is 3.50 you’ll quickly see most of what you recycle isn’t work the gas to go get it and haul it to the recycling center.

Steel was last time I looked $250 US a ton

Cardboard was $10 US

Glass $25 – 40 per ton if you separate it into the different colors, mix color glass is almost worthless.

Even if you assume that you don’t have to go get the stuff, you have to bundle it, and in most cases deliver it, even if you had a place close by (say 10 miles) and you average a gallon and a half of fuel for the round trip, and with two trips per ton that 3 gallons of fuel which would cost $10.50 so you’re losing money on cardboard, you’re only making $15 to $30 on glass. Now don’t forget you have to bundle it and in many cases that requires you to crush it, so you have some cost for that. And lest assume you want to make ONLY $50 per day that’s 6.25 for an 8 hour day. So for Glass you’ll have to sell about 2 tons per day if you assume only a hour for each trip you’ve burn up half a day, just loading and unloading and delivering the stuff.

Having sold steel, you can’t mix types, it has to be “packaged” the right way or you take a huge hit on price.

Beside have you EVER load a ton of anything? You either have equipment (more cost) or spend a lot of time moving your stuff around. Bottles for example, if you don’t have the equipment to crush them into bail would mean you’ll be making many, many trips back and forth to the recycling center and burning up any money you’d make selling the bottles.

Yes there are things worth the time and effort, many (most if you separate them) metals, but not only do you get a good price but in many cases they will come and puck up for little or no cost to you.

Edit 2

Your average car weighs right around 1.5 tons in different metals, plastics, glass, if you have the time and equipment, cars and truck can turn a profit, that’s why I said most metals. You make far more taking it apart then you do just hauling it to a junk yard. So let’s say 1 ton of steel $250, the catalytic converters can bring up to a $100, the aluminum, copper etc, might bring in another $100 so for one car you have $400 to $500, assuming you don’t sell parts, much more if you do sell used parts. So there is good profit in it, if you have the equipment. From the sound of it you have a tow truck and the equipment, and a place to dismantle the cars, (which in many places must be done inside out of sight and the car can’t sit outside at all)

“…discouraging her to recycle “

I’m pointing out the FACTS, it’s not as easy as everyone makes it sound, nor is there such a great profit in it. Notice the original poster (OP) stated “…profit from recycling besides cans…” the OP wanted to make a PROFIT. If you’re in it to make a profit then you skip thing that you can’t make money on. Most things people take to the local recycling center they get NOTHING for them, and many times that stuff winds up in the landfill.

If you want an easy way to see if something is worth recycling (again for PROFIT) put a ton of it in your front lawn and see if anyone will steal it. A ton of paper, glass, bottles, will stay there, a ton of aluminum cans GONE, a ton of catalytic converters GONE.

And with the exceptions of metals, in many cases better for the environment NOT to recycle, it’s been proven time and time again. And Yes I can provide proof of that, you should watch Penn and Teller’s Bullshit on recycling.

Http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzLebC0mjCQ

BTW the market for scrap is way down.

The Expert answers:

YES!

Benefits of Recycling:

· Save Money: Since old corrugated cardboard (OCC) is bulky and takes up a lot of space in dumpsters–especially if unflattened–businesses that generate large volumes of OCC may find it cost effective to bale or compact the material. And, depending upon the market, businesses make actually make a profit on the sale of collected OCC. At the very least, businesses may eliminate disposal fees by preparing it for hauler pickups or delivering it (dropoff) to a recycling facility.

· Provide Social Benefits: Donations of reusable corrugated boxes can be made to charities for reuse, or to school recycle/reuse centers for creative and educational purposes. See “Donation Information” below. Also, recycling OCC reduces the need for new paper from virgin pulp, which in turn decreases the amount of pollution generated in paper production and creates jobs.

· Divert Material from Disposal: OCC is a bulky, highly recyclable waste. Keeping this material out of the waste stream will mean saving landfill space in areas where disposed materials are landfilled and reducing pollution through avoided incineration where waste is incinerated.

BEST PRICE

To get the best prices for OCC and to ensure proper recycling:

· Separate any contaminants from the corrugated, including strapping, plastic bags, Styrofoam®, food waste or floor sweepings. Dealers pay the highest price for clean corrugated.

· Remove any boxes that should not be recycled, especially any that are contaminated by toxic or hazardous materials. Boxes cannot be recycled if they have been treated with plastic extrusions or laminates, wax coatings, etc.

· Some dealers and mills will accept loose material, but large bales are generally preferred.

The Expert answers:

Paper can and is recycled for money, You also can do the same if you want to invest into equipment for packaging. Paper is sold in various grades recycling mills who when sell to actual paper mills. Each bale of paper weights at or near one ton. The whiter the paper the more it is worth. The more color or ink on paper requires more chemicals and mechanical processing which lowers its cost. If you can sort the grades correctly and bundle into 2000 pounds then approach a paper broker who is middle man between mills and he will offer you a price. Paper prices change daily but have seen total white paper scrap sell for 135- 150 dollars per ton. News paper print sell for 50 dollars per ton which is the lowest grade of paper. So yes you can make money but will take money and storage to get started.

The Expert answers:

The recycling center pays per lbs. I took my cans, plastic bottles and glass to be recycled today at Tri-CED and I got $49.21.
For plastic I got $0.92 per lb
Glass $0.11 per lb
Cans $1.57 per lb

FYI: This was one month’s recycling for a family of 6. The rates vary from recycling centers. I’ve heard of places paying $2.25 lb for cans if you have the coupon from the Penny Saver Paper.

Happy recycling!

The Expert answers:

Aluminum is one of the few recycled materials that does make financial sense. It really is cheaper to melt down old aluminum (cans or otherwise) than to make new aluminum from bauxite (aluminum ore).

First you need to find someone who will buy the aluminum from you. Try googling alumimum plus the name of your state. Ormet corporation for example recycles aluminum in St, Marys, West Virginia. Then contact them and ask how much they pay, where you must deliver the cans to, any other terms (min or max amounts, etc.).

Then you can figure out how you will get your aluminum, how you will get it to your buyer, etc.

Good luck.

The Expert answers:

You would need a truck full to make some money plus paper is very heavy. You’ll earn more with glass bottles, jars, & tin cans; scrap metal, but copper & aluminum will get you more specially aluminum cans. Plastic drinking bottles & 1 gallon plastic juice or milk jars can earn you more than news paper.

If you don’t want to just give them away, reuse your news paper for wrapping or turn them into paper bags. You can protect fragile items with crumpled news paper if you don’t want to use styrofoam peanuts for packaging.