Recycling Profit - Endorsing Recycling in Your Business Practices

By Leo Thomas    

A Guide to Generating More Revenue from Your Existing Operations
The business of recycling is constantly expanding. It is easily one of our fastest growing industries. From recycling metals and plastic, to organic waste for composting, there seems to be no end in sight for those interested in being a part of an industry whose growth continues to expand. The number of recycling opportunities can only be matched by the number of new products that continue to come out on the consumer market.
Companies can now take part in this growing industry by looking at their own operations to see if there is any way to generate revenue from recycling. Even furniture manufacturers use scrap wood from production to sell as kindling for fire places. Companies that use metal such as copper, nickel, and brass for plating purposes, use the sludge generated from operations to sell as scrap. Old catalytic carburetors from cars are known to contain both platinum and nickel. Platinum is actually one of the most expensive metals in the world. Companies that recycle plastic would be interested in everything from used plastic toys to the scrap plastic generated by manufacturers of DVDs and CDs. The pricing for all these items varies according to the quality of the material. Obviously, some materials garner higher prices than others, but all generate some return. Even paper and cardboard can fetch over £50.00 a ton, with certain grades of office paper potentially worth more. It is rather obvious that there is money to be made in recycling. That being the case, how can you go about looking into generating revenue from recycling in your own operations, or from your own customers?

Take the time to look at your product offerings.
What kind of products does your company manufacture or provide? What kind of customers do you service? If you service business to business customers, you may be able to generate revenue from scrap, provided you could find some way to take back the used product from your customer. For instance, if you manufactured or distributed specialized lamps with mercury inside them, you could probably charge your customer a fee to have them returned to your company to have them properly disposed of. Most companies have to pay a local fee to have materials like this properly disposed of. In some cases, those fees can be quite high. However, if you did your homework, you might actually be able to offer them a reduction in those fees, and generate a small profit for your company. How about if you manufactured products from plastic? There are plenty of applications for recycled plastic. Take the time to look at the materials your company uses. Does it make sense for you to take back the used parts once your customer finishes with them?

Look at the cost of securing the scrap.
What is the cost of securing the scrap for your company? Are most of your customers in close proximity to your location? If so, do you deliver your products to them? All of these conditions should be considered. If you take care of delivering product to your customers, you might be able to pick up the used material at the same time.  If most of your customers are in the same geographical location, then you'll probably be able to do a milk run and pick up from a number of customers at one time. There are a number of ways to secure the scrap.

It bestows an image of being an environmentally friendly organization.
Being environmentally conscious can pay huge dividends for your enterprise. If your company is active in your community and propagates an image of being environmentally friendly, you may just find customers willing to give you their scrap for free. A perfect example of this would be those previously mentioned companies that recycle optical media products, like CDs and DVDs. Consumers who want to properly dispose of these products, and don't want to see them sitting in landfills, are more than willing to send them to you if they know you will properly dispose of them. These can actually be sold as scrap plastic and generate some favorable pricing on the scrap market.

We all understand what it means to minimize our carbon footprint and the importance of being environmentally conscious. It can also be a good source of revenue for companies who manufacture or distribute products. Every single piece of scrap can generate some kind of return. It's best to take the time to look at your product offerings and see if there is anyway to generate some revenue from your existing operations and customer base.

Visit Accountants in London, a firm of accountants and business advisors specialising in small business. Find out how we can help your business grow. http://taxaccountantslondon.co.uk

Turn Your Truck Into an Eco-Truck for Recycling Profits

By Craig Wallin    

You'd like to see your haul-away business make a great profit and do great things for your local community. That's just a part of your value system-making good money, but also doing good things for others. So how could you do that? By turning your truck into an eco-truck. Here's how:
Your truck is your ticket to good money. By starting your own haul-away business you not only get to be your own boss, but have total freedom over your schedule. You can work as little or as much as you'd like. People pay you to haul away unwanted items or debris. How much? After deducting dump fees, fuel costs and vehicle maintenance, the current national average is $53 an hour. Yes, that's right, an hour!
But did you know you could make even more money by recycling items? Many first-time junk haulers don't know that probably half of the items they haul away can actually be recycled or re-sold. Dropping off items at a recycler is a great way to make extra money. As if making $53 an hour wasn't good enough, you can actually make more money by doing this. Not only is it great for your wallet, but it's simply a great thing to do for the environment. There is no reason to clog up landfills with unwanted items that can actually be recycled. It's simply the right and smart thing to do.

More and more people are going green these days. Businesses too. It's a smart idea for businesses to do things for the community, to try to help others. Recycling is the way you can do that. Let your potential customers know that you recycle as many items as you can. They'll be happy to hear their unwanted items and debris aren't just going to a landfill, but instead that an effort is being made to recycle all that can be recycled. Be sure to include this fact on your service sheet and web site or blog. It's simply a great selling point.

Making an effort towards recycling could also help land you in your local newspaper. Newspapers love to cover new businesses, especially ones that do good things for the environment and the community. If your business engages in a lot of recycling, that could be just the angle to get you in the newspaper. Put together a press release that clearly states this fact, and you could find yourself getting a call for an interview before you know it. An article in the newspaper is not only completely free to you, but opens you up to a lot of potential business.

By turning your truck into an eco-truck, your haul-away business could see increased profits and respectability from your local community. It's simply the smart thing to do. To learn more, read Haul It Away, available at: http://extraincomebulletin.com

Craig Wallin is the author of twelve best-selling books about home-based businesses you can start for just a few hundred dollars, and the editor of EXTRA INCOME BULLETIN, an online resource about honest businesses you can start on a shoestring. To learn more, visit: http://extraincomebulletin.com

Why Should Businesses Recycle - Profit Motive or Because It's the Right Thing to Do?

By Lance Winslow    

Not all businesses recycle all they can, perhaps they don't even realize how much they throw away which is actually needed somewhere else. That makes sense right? Sure, and if you've ever run a company, you know that as hard as you try, well, you can't know everything.
The other day, I watched a small business owner break up some cardboard boxes and toss it in the trash. Did you know there is a shortage of cardboard? It's true. Guess where; China, that's right China and they need more paper products and cardboard to recycle for just about everything and a good many of those shipping containers that go back empty, yep, they are now filled with cardboard, go figure?

Not long ago, I was having this very conversation with an individual about recycling, and she indicated to me that she appreciated my focus on the recycling needs for business based on their bottom line, that is to say, get businesses to recycle by showing them they can sell those recyclables, or show them how to reduce waste to make more money. Still, she also believed that too often "the greater good is overlooked by our over consuming society." Okay so, that is a point well taken indeed.
Now then, let's debate this shall we? You see I believe that businesses should recycle because less waste is more efficient, and efficiency is profitable, and profit motive works. I also believe Everyone should recycle as much as possible because, well because it is the right thing to do.
So, to the comment of an "over-consuming society" I'd have this to say; Enjoying one's life-experience immersed in the greatest nation ever created in all of human history, and the desire to enjoy that incredible opportunity to the fullest should be celebrated. Why live without, when there is abundance everywhere.
Additionally, we find that our strong middle class (currently, it's in severe jeopardy) has helped uplift people in nations around the world. I've seen so many great and wonderful things from this. The more efficient things run in the production of products and services (that people want, need, or desire remember) means that prices are lower, thus more abundance, free time, and efficiency (provided free-markets are allowed to exist without crony capitalism).

Since, anything left over in the manufacturing process is waste, that means there is still inefficiency to remove, in doing so it also removes pollution, and the very waste which fills up the landfills. There is a direct correlation between waste and profits, and a diminishing return formula. By re-using, recycling, and mining of recycled waste, you get efficiency, and efficiency = profits, lower costs.
There are so many rules and regulations that small and medium companies are often afraid to deviate, or even risk innovating in their operations, and they really don't know what is recyclable and what isn't. Indeed, I'd say we must beware of mandating recycling to the point of absurdity, rather reward the behavior desired, by allowing free-markets to solve that problem for us.
One last note: Beware the law of unintended consequences from the actions, legislation, trends of socialists, communists, anarchists, environmentalists, and do-gooders who don't understand how the world works, why it works, or what has made this country the greatest nation in the history of mankind. A society is best when each individual is strongest.

Now then, I am assuming not everyone is okay with what I've had to say in this article. So, I am open to receive emails with comments, questions, concerns, empirical data, and case studies. However, quite frankly, I rather doubt anyone has any new arguments, or debating points I have not heard before at nausea, or that I haven't yet considered the prior. So, I guess many of my readers might see our viewpoints diverge into an impasse. I'd love to hear an original thought on why focusing on efficiency and the bottom line is the wrong direction to travel to solve the problems associated with the lack of recycling amongst small and medium sized businesses.

Lance Winslow is the Founder of the Online Think Tank, a diverse group of achievers, experts, innovators, entrepreneurs, thinkers, futurists, academics, dreamers, leaders, and general all around brilliant minds. Lance Winslow hopes you've enjoyed today's discussion and topic. http://www.WorldThinkTank.net - Have an important subject to discuss, contact Lance Winslow.

Waste - Killing Your Profits or Boosting Them?

By Geoff Morris    

Whenever we set out to make a profit, it is inevitable that we create waste in the process. In the olden days, waste was something that you burnt, buried, or threw into the nearest river or ocean.

Nowadays, we have to be a little bit more circumspect in how we dispose of our rubbish, because if we don't, not only will we continue to poison our own environment, waste valuable and finite raw materials, but also start to destroy our profitability. How? Because we miss out on doing what all natural organisms do - what nature takes in for energy is usually something else's waste, whether that's humans, plants, microbes - what goes around, comes around. On top of that, if we still refuse to recycle and reuse our waste in a sensible manner, the cost in monetary terms with more and more penalties about to be launched could make financial stability a thing of the past. However, with more and more incentives to reduce our carbon footprint in the form of lucrative carbon credits, the economic incentives to manage our waste efficiently have never been greater.

One of the biggest waste concerns right now is the efficient handling of toxic waste, whether that comes from hospitals, veterinary surgeries, abattoirs, or even supermarkets and hotels with their food waste issues.
At the moment, every ton of toxic waste comes with massive liabilities, in terms of licences, storage and transport issues, and gate fees for disposal. It is no longer permitted to dump toxic waste in legal landfills (although a lot of illegal dumping still continues).
Both hospital waste and food waste runs the risk that unless it is treated quite rapidly, the chances of smells, or even dangerous toxic fumes being released while in normal storage can be quite high. For health and safety reasons, neither waste type should be land filled or incinerated, but will need very careful processing to render it safe and to recover as much energy as possible (both have very high calorific values). Unfortunately, to carry out this safe conversion will take a large investment in the right equipment, and then will have logistics issues getting the waste transported safely to this processing plant. On top of this, healthcare providers face a big challenge in managing all of the regulated waste streams that are generated at a modern facility.
There are a number of regulated solutions already available for hospitals and other types of medical centres, but these all mean that the medical facility producing the waste will have to pay a high gate fee for disposal (in the region of 400 or more a ton), plus all of the licensing, waste security, and transport costs involved. Most of these service providers will make a good profit out of disposing of this waste, and to many such organisations, they will be quite keen to dispose of their liability in as easy a manner as possible, and get on with their primary task - health care.

But, with financial stability becoming more and more difficult to maintain, and medical funding, especially in the public sector coming under more and more scrutiny, alternative methods must always be under investigation.
One such method that is gaining more and more popularity in terms of public safety, and the ability to turn this waste away from a liability and into a profit centre, is to install systems at each hospital, or other point of waste production, that will actually reduce the amount of waste and to convert it into sterile feedstock that can be safely transported to a large waste management plant, where it can be successfully converted into renewable energy. This is also done in a sealed environment, so there is no chance of toxic fumes or smells escaping in the process.

By installing revolutionary new 'waste converters' at the point where the waste is created, instead of building up a liability of at least 400 per ton, with all of the dangers of having toxic waste in close proximity to many people, these converters will actually create a sterilised product with an actual resale value, and in an environment where no toxic fumes or smells are released.

So, with the right technology then, the waste material will have gone from being a liability at around 400 per ton, to a sterile feedstock for conversion to green energy, worth around 100 per ton. The increase in value will be in this order:-
1. Liability of 400 per ton removed
2. No further special storage or transport issues or costs
3. All the contents would have been ground down to small pieces, including organic and non-organic material.
4. The actual bulk will have been reduced by at least 60% though moisture removal.
5. Any non-organic recyclables will have been cleaned and sterilised, ready for sale
6. Heat generated to sterilise the waste, and evaporated considerable amounts of moisture can have been fed back into a heat exchange system, for a value.
7. The residue will now be in a position to be sold to a waste management facility, either for a value, or in return for carbon credits and or electricity income. The residue can be easily transported in vehicles that will need no special cleansing afterwards.
8. The whole organisation would be able to boast a true GREEN accreditation.
Depending on the actual amount of waste produced by each location, and whether a number of separate entities could work together on this, it may well be economically viable for them to join together to invest in a special waste management system, that will take the sterilised waste, and convert it to green electricity, The income from the electricity generated and the value of the carbon credits, should pay for such a system in under three years.

Now, those who still insist on sitting back, and doing nothing to change their ways towards the sensible handling of waste, will find that very shorty, they will be regretting their lack of action. Very soon now, the fines that will be dished out to companies that are still not 'doing their bit' to manage their waste issues with some concern for the environment we all have to share, will be disproportionately large..
Why not invest sensibly in your green future now and remove the threat of punitive and costly action if you don't...

The choice is yours. Waste Not - Want Not, never rang more true...

Geoff Morris has been examining the issues of waste management solutions for some considerable time now, both for sustainable humanitarian projects, as well as full on commercial enterprises. If you would like to know what is really available and proven out there, just drop him an email at geoff@thebritgroup.com.

3 Reasons You Should Know About Waste Facilities

By Steve Evans    

Ever say to yourself that maybe you should know more about what happens in waste facilities? That exact same thought has occurred to many people. Some went ahead and did it. Some never did their homework to get more info and thus never knew enough to make a serious start.
Well, hold on just a moment there. Let's consider this. For you to consider, here's three reasons why you should know about waste facilities.

First off, in their favor, allow me to explain that waste facilities are the places where our rubbish (trash, garbage - call it what you like) is handled, separated, sorted, processed, and recycled so that our streets stay clean and our countryside can stay clean. A landfill is just one type of waste facility. Other types are, waste transfer stations, household waste and civic amenity sites, incinerators, composting sites, anaerobic digestion plants run on waste, hospital waste processed in autoclaves, MRFs, and MBT plants, are just a few of all many waste facilities to be found in any city.

Sure, I am aware of your objection that really this all sounds very smelly and dirty and you had rather not even think about it. That which you say holds true, I agree, but nevertheless we all produce a huge amount of garbage. It has to go somewhere, and without good waste facilities our towns and cities would soon not only look a mess, they would soon become downright unhealthy places.
Secondly, you really should consider that all good citizens should dispose of their waste responsibly. And, in addition to that, in order to say we are sympathetic with nature and looking after our planet, we should be actively recycling our trash. To do that we should know where our local recycling centres are, and what types of waste to take their to them.

Plus, even better, you could think of ways to reduce your own waste. That would help the environment and ease the burden on the many waste facilities, which cost a lot to run and maintain.
Third, you can make a difference which will reduce the burden of waste on our environment, if you recycle. This means that less raw material and energy is used. And on top of that, you may find that you can re-use things around your home, and save money at the same time!
Within all of the above info lies a very good list of reasons in support of learning about facilities for waste management in your area. What's your opinion?
Just think about it. Maybe you really, in all seriousness, should know more about your local waste facilities.