Recycling For Money – Recycle Everything

I have always recycled something for most of my life. My dad taught me that you get money for aluminum cans when I was a young girl and to throw one in the trash was throwing away money.

Now lets fast forward thirty years.

I noticed these big white bins setting around, they look like trash cans but they have the green recycle arrows on them. I investigated the new bins! WOW free trash pick up is what came to mind. I can get rid of paper and plastic for free.

Now I just have glass to deal with, yes I sent them to the dump, after all no one wanted those here in Anniston , Alabama.

Jump another few years, Thirty seven years after my dad taught me to recycle.

I visit my local recycling center about every other week now and I pretty much take all my trash in for cash.

I get paid for newspaper, junk mail, cardboard, tin food cans and aluminum cans. I can donate the plastic but its better to recycle than burn it or toss in a landfill. Glass, I have no idea how to reuse all of it so it ends up in the landfill but recently I hear they are taking glass but I see none there.

Now let me tell you how I recycle and not have a mess of filth laying around for take in, recycle day. Separate as you go. I use cardboard boxes or plastic shopping bags. I put each in its own trash can.

I only get the Sundays paper and if I am not using them as  the base for “weed free growing beds” I have around sixteen papers a month.

Mail, I generally I save this for a couple of months because it take a good bit to make weight.

Food cans will be the worst smelling, so I put them into a large trash bag and I take it off monthly. No I do not waste water washing them out. If you want to get super serious take the labels off and  put them into the mail/ mixed paper can.

Cardboard/ Paper board. This is coke can boxes, pizza boxes any food box. And normal cardboard boxes.

The money maker is always the aluminum! I save all my coke and Pepsi cans, my sister saves hers for me too. I usually make $10 a month with just those.

But what I want people to know is that recycling is not just in the kitchen, the bathroom has a lot of recyclables. Toilet paper rolls are cardboard and face lotion boxes, all the boxes items come in. Shaving cream cans and hair spray cans are steel/ tin. Plastic shampoo/ conditioner/ lotion bottles and mouth wash bottles.

While some states do accept plastic for money, Alabama does not.

Next time you put something in the trash, stop and think about money you are throwing away.

By Andria Perry

Photo By Pixabay