Recycling For Profit

in Recycling


Now you can get paid to get rid of items such as cell phones, batteries, scrap metal and ink and toner cartridges. These are examples of some of the things you can recycle for profit. In fact, some companies will even send you postage prepaid boxes to return your recyclables. When they receive it, they send you a check! There are also companies that will even pay you to take your unwanted items away.

So how can you get in on all this recycling for profit? The easiest way is just to look around your own home or workplace.

Sometimes people make the mistake of thinking that a few cans, bottles and drink containers are not worth much. Well, in a sense, they are right. A few containers are not going to pay for your vacation, but if you ramp it up, there can be a lot of money in large quantities.

Did you know that the average North American family consumes 182 gallons of soda, 29 gallons of juice, 104 gallons of milk and 26 gallons of bottled water a year? Consider that many people can't be bothered to take in their containers and are more than happy to have you take them away. As unbelievable as it sounds, there are still many offices and apartment buildings that do not recycle. I'll bet if you offered to place a recycling bin on the premises and empty it regularly, they would be thrilled.

There is huge opportunity in recycling cell phones. Many people do not even know they can recycle their cell phone, let alone get money back for it. In the United States alone, there are an estimated 130 million cell phones that will be replaced. The fact that users can take their phone number with means that people are not waiting until their contacts are done to switch phones. As soon as the new model comes out, people flock to it. Just look at the iPhone phenomenon. The older a cell phone gets, the less it is worth. Some of the newer models still have a pretty high value. On average, a cell phone can have a value of about $10, so right now there is potentially around $110 million dollars sitting in drawers gathering dust.

One of the other ways to make money recycling is battery reconditioning. There is a lot of money to be made here because often times you can get dead batteries for free, recondition them and resell them. It doesn't cost very much to bring the batteries back to life. It is not hard to do, but can be messy and dangerous if you don't know what you are doing.

Sometimes, as in the case of scrap metal or wooden pallets, industrial sites will pay you to remove these items. But even if you don't get paid to take them, you can return them for profit. Check in your town to see what is available. Most larger cities will offer these kinds of recycling.

For those entrepreneurial types out there, charities or just most of us looking for a few extra dollars, recycling for profit can be an ideal way to make money.

Author Box
Deb Primrose has 1 articles online

Deb Primrose, AKA Earth Friendly Chick writes on a variety of eco-friendly topics. To find out more about recycling, check out

Add New Comment

Recycling For Profit

Log in or Create Account to post a comment.
Security Code: Captcha Image Change Image
This article was published on 2010/03/31