My Metal Recycling

Good Morning!

I have been busy growing my vegetable garden which is coming along nicely, and clearing out the old in my home to make room for the new. It feels good to dispose of items that, for some reason, we hang on to, but never use. I am not sure why we keep stuff, but, well, I cleaned house. Both mentally and physically.  I got together all the junk I did not want. Over a week of cleaning, and organizing then suddenly the fridge in the music studio dies.  "NO!" No running motor, not getting cold,  but the light is on. DANG! Well now what? Brainstorm.... I said to my Tom, "Let's see if some one will come take it." So we went to Freecycle.org to find a person wanting some old appliances. As we did so Tom says "Call Blewett's." (**a local metal scrap yard)  I replied, "They don't take refrigerators, only clean metal."  So, Tom called a man who advertised that he takes old refrigerators and other appliances. Well just as he was talking on the phone to that person,  it occurred to me that Tom is most likely right and that we should call the scrap metal place to see if they do in fact take refrigerators. Guess what?  They Do! "Any metal" said the lady at the scrap recycling place.
$$ Kaching! $$.  So, here we go!  We are looking around the house and yard to make this trip worth every penny. We stuff the old fridge in the van and our neighbor comes to help. (We love Fred and all our neighbors. Salt of the earth they are.  God blessed us with these neighbors.)  So Fred says "What are you doing with this?" "It's broke" we said. "we are taking it to Blewett's." Fred replies, "So now you will have "beer" money." "I also have aluminum chairs you can take if they can fit."  We laughed at the reference to the amount of money we will likely make from our "scrap metal".  As it turns out, I have lots of scrap. No kidding!  I found old metal pipes, a broken ladder, a lamp, wine rack, disk break pads, chairs from Fred's, and so forth.

We head over to Blewett's metal recycling and pull in.  From the front all you see is a fence with a sign that says "Drive up".  Tom knew what to do so he told me to pull forward onto the scale. We did and were weighed. Then we were directed to the drop off area. It was a very busy place. People from all over the area were there doing the same thing. Driving all around back and forth dropping off metal. I have never had such an experience before. Men with pickup trucks dumping old chairs, car parts, TV's along with every other metal object they could scrounge up. It looked like mayhem but it was infact a well functioning yard. Then, I saw this big backhoe with a car body stuck to the front. The driver is driving all over the place with it. I was confused as to what to do because everyone seemed to be going in every direction.  Trucks are parked dropping off stuff, then driving around you as you pull in, then backing up really fast toward you only to turn around and drive out.  After a few minutes of unloading our "scrap" I realized that the backhoe driver with the car stuck to the front actually had a purpose.  He was using the car body as a broom!  Holy moly!  He backed up then pushed the scrap piles to one bigger pile across the lot. Over and over he did this to create one giant pile of metal for crushing. The other people, who seemingly are driving aimlessly in every direction, are used to this place and know exactly what to do because they have done it a billion times before. It was just my perception that this was mayhem.  But it wasn't.  We then got to the area where you drop off aluminum and brass. You get more if you sort your metal's.  We wait on line, then back in when it's our turn. We get a ticket for those metal's,  then get weighed again. Tom parks the van in the lot and goes in to the office to get paid. Within 4 minutes he comes out with a receipt detailing our metals and weight of the scrap, along with a few dollars. "Well, we got beer money." "$40."

All smiles we headed home with a new experience together and a great understanding of how people make money with scrap metal.  How useful John Blewett's place is in keeping our landfills free of useful waste.  Many others will benefit from this scrap metal yard too.  From the people who collect it, to the people who buy it from Blewett's.  What a great memory we will share and a fabulous experience in recycling.


Need Money? Two words. Scrap Metal.


Peace.
Suzanne


**It is my understanding that the metal from Blewett's is sorted by type, crushed, cubed, and sold to companies who will melt it down and manufacture something useful.