There will always be a bunch of odds and ends at home that you can do away with at minimal risk to you or your loved ones. The best part is: you can earn some money in the process. David Hamilton, AKA Rustedmemory, pointedly states in his Hubpages article:
Today, every dollar counts … Make money out of household items and other unusable metal scrap you have gathered. … The metal recycling industry is growing. Be one of the people doing the right thing by bringing scrap to be recycled instead of throwing it away.
The prospect of making money out of scrap materials that will be reused later on may be tempting to people aware of multiple related environmental concerns. Australia, in particular, uses up to 450,000 tonnes of steel a year for various purposes; its mining industry is also bustling with activity but at an energy-intensive risk, plus safety issues such as tailings. As such, you can do your part for the environment by arranging a scrap metal pick up through companies like Global Resources.
Preparing the scrap metal for recycling requires a lot of handiwork. For instance, you need to learn how to segregate aluminum items from those made of steel; it also applies to determining which metallic items attract a magnet and which don’t. However, much caution on potential saleability is needed; according to Hamilton, a recycler may reject anything that has commercial purposes (e.g., railroad, industrial-strength wire) unless you have documentation to prove you’re deputised to dispose of them.
You can then put the segregated items in marked containers such as buckets or plastic bags (particularly not for metal with broken edges). Hamilton says segregating it early on reduces the materials recycler’s workload on sifting through everything themselves.
Once all scrap metal items have been properly categorised and contained, you can bring them over to your preferred recycler for final processing. A company like Global Resources offers options such as collection services and drop-offs at the recycling site. If you opt to transport the materials to the main site, the recycling team will weigh it on the spot and pay you based on the current metal prices.
When you consider the environmental and health issues of spent materials just lying around, selling scrap for cash may not be such a bad idea. You get some peace of mind and you’ll have more free space at home.
(Source: Tips and Advice for Scrap Metal Recycling, Hubpages)
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