By Steve Davies, Healthy Planet Columnist
For most of us, recycling metal consists of the steel and aluminum cans we get from our local stores. By the time you’ve read this article however, I’m hoping to have recycled what’s known as scrap metal. That’s the rest of the metal that you can find throughout your house. Right now, we have a lot of ours downstairs collecting dust in the basement.
I have lots of these big bolts from my kid’s old tree house and springs from their old trampoline along with a couple old cookie pans, the back of an old dryer, a couple old lamps and even an old foldout bed frame. There’s even a set of metal shelves in our laundry room that if I don’t have enough stuff to put on them, I’ll probably recycle them as well.
In addition, my oldest son has also been collecting pieces of metal wherever and whenever he finds it. Since he happens to work at an automotive warehouse these days, old nuts and bolts, screws and even nails somehow always manage to find their way from his pant pockets to the washer or dryer to the jar in his bedroom.
So anyway, now that we have all of it collected and sitting in a couple plastic containers, the next step is to find a place to take it. As I talked about before, I once owned a small recycling company many years ago and so I think I remember where they’re located. There was one place that was really close to us back then but unfortunately, my son and I drove by there the other day, only to discover they’re no longer around. That said, I’m still probably going to do a little looking around.
Now the process is rather simple if I recall. Generally, they weigh your car before you unload, then after you unloaded, they weigh it again. What I don’t exactly remember is how they sort the metal itself but, I guess I’ll find out.
All in all, it’ll be like a field trip and after we get back, we’ll be sure to let you know how it goes and where we went so the next time you want to recycle some old scrap metal from your house, you’ll know where to go. The one side benefit to this type of recycling is we will actually get paid a little bit. My son, however, thinks he’ll be rich. Either way, it should help us clean out our laundry/tool room.