Metal recycling

veryintrigued

Update for you. Made a trip to the recycling centre on Sat morning (it opens at 07:30hrs which was great).

We took two old washing machines, some sorted aluminium cans, sorted steel cans and then 'stuff' like old hoovers, bits of metal with plastic attached.

They weighed the aluminium seperately (60p per kilo). Even though we had sorted the steel from mixed bits of metal with contaminents (bits of plastic/wood/paper etc) still attached they weighed it all together (20p per kilo).

We walked away with £49-80. Not bad eh?

So learned that its not worth spending time stripping much plastic, paper, wood etc from any steel / iron products as its all treated as scrap and you get paid for it!

I guess different recycling centres / scrapyards have different rules tough?

Last night took the dog for a walk and returned with a full carrier bag of cans. Is it wrong to be quite enjoying this?

veryintrigued

Further update for you - so far 5kg of aluminium collected whilst walking dog each night for a month.

And thats not every night and I arent brave enough to pick up cans when people are around (so I leave them) and ones that are even a little tricky to get.

Its a so sad on our society that I can grab all the cans on one street and the next day more have appeared.

As aside - the other main culprits - ciagarrette packets and plastic bottles.

darkpool

i thought i was the only person that picked up drinks cans, it's good to see someone else does it as well.

in all honesty getting a full bag of cans is so satisfying

veryintrigued

darkpool wrote: »

i thought i was the only person that picked up drinks cans, it's good to see someone else does it as well.

in all honesty getting a full bag of cans is so satisfying

Agreed! However we went to our local woods to walk the dog yesrterday - we didnt get more than 400M before we had filled four bags just full of cans. Great but also a little sadening.

We'll be back there soon to carry on.

Frugalista

Interesting thread!

I work in a kennels and we throw away dozens of empty food cans a day. I am now thinking of bringing them home and saving them up. Any idea how many cans in a kilo? By the way, I crush them by laying them on their side on the floor and stomping on them - works fine.

ETA - I know steel cans are not as lucrative but every little helps!

jblack_2

veryintrigued wrote: »

As aside - the other main culprits - ciagarrette packets and plastic bottles.

I've always thought there should be a deposit on plastic bottles and tin cans. I'm sure very few people would mind paying an extra 5p per item. This 5p could then be given back to people when the item is handed in for recycling.

There is a similar system in parts of Canada. Guess what, you don't see many cans or bottles littering the streets out there. Even if the original purchaser just threw the item on the floor it wouldn't be there for long, someone would collect it.

Found this; http://calgary.foundlocally.com/personal/goodsrecycling.htm

patman99

How's everyone doing on the can-front ?. Took my van down to the scrappy last month and off-loaded an old high-sleeper bed, oil-filled radiator, 5 bags of steel cans, some old weights and 2 bags of ali. Drove away with £38.90. The van wasn't even full.
Got some more stuff ti pick-up from parents and a friend before Xmas, so well on way to next £50.