How to Recycle Your Old Stuff & Make Money

Recycling used to mean taking your bottles to the bottle bank on a Sunday afternoon, but now in these times of austerity and carbon taxes recycling has become big business. Companies have sprung up willing to take your waste and either make money from selling it or recycling it and selling it back to manufactures, but what about little you and me? Can we get a slice of the action? Yes we can. Let’s have a look at some of the opportunities out there.

1. Mobile Phones

This is the big one, there are millions of hand sets in circulation at any given time and because they are continually evolving they are being passed on. What was hot in the UK last year is now the latest thing in some developing nations. There are two basic avenues you can go down depending on how you feel. You can either trade your handset in for cold hard cash and a company will either sell it on or dismantle it and sell the parts. Or you could give your phone to a charity and they can benefit from the cash.

2. Clothes

Your old clothes can make you money. It depends on the quality though. If you change with the seasons and buy cheap high street brands then most places won’t buy your offerings. But if you have quality garments that you no longer need, there will always be demand for them. One of the biggest and easiest markets to sell in is Ebay. Spend some time researching Ebay’s vast offerings and learn how to make your offerings more appealing to buyers: include as much detail as possible, all the measurements, include a couple of good photos, and make sure you are as honest as possible when describing the item.

3. Electronic goods

As many people know the founder of Ebay, Pierre Omidyar decided to test the system and put up a broken laser pointer up for sale.  Someone brought the laser pointer and Pierre was so shocked that he contacted the buyer to explain that the laser pointer was broken, the buyer replied ‘I collect broken laser pointers’. The tale of the story is that one man’s junk is another man’s treasure. Ebay is not the only website to look at, there are many other websites that specialise in selling all kinds of electronic goods, working or otherwise.

4. Cars

Cars are worth a lot to the right buyer, but have you thought about all the individual parts that go into your car, your car is worth more as parts than as a whole. If you have an older car it might be worth investigating selling it piece by piece. Obviously there are two points to consider here, you won’t have a functioning car whilst you dismantle it and how understanding will your neighbours be as your car is slowly taken apart? Each car has a group and following and if you have a rare model there can be big money to be made. Phone some specialist dismantlers and see what prices you are offered, you might be surprised.

5. Shops

Every shop produces waste, in quite large amounts and if you find the right type of shop you can collect their waste and pass it onto a recycling firm. Old cardboard currenty sells for $120 a tonne, so if you find a shop that has a lot of cardboard waste each week you could be on to a winner. You could also damage the axle on your car!

There is waste all around us and if you see an opportunity you can not only help the planet but you could also make some money too. Hopefully this article has highlighted the way that we as individuals can make a difference to the world and to our wallets too!

Ben writes for Any Junk, a man and van service for all your junk removal services. When he’s not writing about recycling Ciaran enjoys putting his words into practice and is an avid gardener and recycling nut.