Money for nothing…

My darling husband pointed something out to me a little while ago. It should really be obvious, but I hadn’t quite figured it out.

“When we recycle many of our goods, they are taken away by companies who sell them on to those who process them into new commodities.”

I did know this, but I think I had failed to fully take on board the 15th word. *Sell*. Some of the stuff we recycle does actually have a monetary value which we are giving away for the convenience of just getting the stuff off our hands. However, if we are willing to give a little house or garden room to storing some of this, we can actually realise this money ourselves.

A few weeks ago, a friend gave me some tinfoil she’d been saving. I stuck it by my woodpile (no room in the house). Because it was there, everytime I got a bit of tinfoil (aluminimum), I washed it, squashed it flat and stuck it in the carrier bag. My bag is about half full, and according to my scales, would fetch me about £1.50 if I weighed it in at a scrap metal merchant. The effort of doing this is no greater than the effort of sticking it into the recycling bin, so I’m £1.50 up on the deal for about 3 weeks of saving. I haven’t got a tin-squasher yet, but when I do, I will be washing, squashing and saving my steel cans too. I plan on stripping the steel from my old boiler as well, and weighing that in.

This plan would be a little easier if I had a dedicated storage area for various recyclables, so I hope to plan that into the new house. Why not make money from my own rubbish? There’s no value in plastic, so that continues to be recycled through the normal channels, but paper gets used to (1) line the chicken hut and then (2) go into the compost bin with the chicken poo on it to make good compost! Heavy card gets recycled as normal, as does glass (well, whatever glass I don’t use to put pickle/lemon curd/jam/wine in for next year!), but I’m feeling happy about reducing my waste and actually generating some value for my own household.

It is worth noting that I’m talking about *small scale* recycling, not turning my house into Steptoe and Son’s yard!  My tinfoil stash takes up about half a carrier bag when squashed flat (and let’s face it, tinfoil is pretty easy to squash!).

Worth a try!