Can Do Attitude Creates Cash

Residents in northwestern San Antonio,Texas are lucky; they have a place right in their neighborhood that is willing to pay them for their junk (Northwest Weekly, January 25,2008).

“We get calls all the time from the Northeast Side,” which lacks recycling facilities, says Tom Triesch, president of Great Northwest Recycling.

His facility at 7386 Grissom Road is one of the few places on the North Side of town where residents can recycle their metals. The majority of such centers are based in the southern region of the city. At the center’s busiest times, Saturday mornings, business is brisk as the carloads of cans queue up and the conveyor belt carries a river of clattering clutter into the interior of the facility, where the cans will be crushed into giant bricks of aluminum and shipped overseas to be melted down and begin aluminum life anew.

But it’s not just cans that get recycled. Wire coat hangers, air conditioning condensers, radiators and a myriad of other metal objects make their way into the recycling center every day. Although many people don’t realize it, they could actually make money off of their unwanted washer-and-dryer set, barbecue pit, boxes of computer cards and wires in the back of the garage.

“Most people who call ask, ‘How much is that going to cost me?’ ” said Triesch, who willingly pays for the scrap.

While the days of tractor-trailer can recycling centers in every Wal-Mart are long gone, there’s still money to be made in can recycling. At 55 cents per pound, a recent cache of cans recycled by two Northwest Weekly staffers yielded more than $20.

The price of aluminum, time of year and nearby, competing recycling centers all factor in when it comes to price. For example, aluminum prices are higher in the summer, and one can get more money per pound on the South Side.

“It’s like any business. It’s a commodity business,” Triesch said, adding that one must also consider the gas, time and effort it takes to recycle the product to determine if it’s worth it.

“I feel bad for people who drive all across town for $1 or $1.50,” he said.

With today’s price of copper high, and the rate of thievery rising, be prepared to show identification if that’s the metal of your recycling choice. High fences with coiled barbed wire circle the center, but still Triesch has had the aggravating experience of thieves attempting to sell him metals stolen from his own recycling center.

“It’s a real tough deal right now” Triesch said of the hardship metal thieves cause the recycling industry. A recent sting, he noted, three area facilities who failed to “card” copper recyclers.

At least his metals business, unlike facilities that recycle paper, are not as vulnerable to catastrophic loss like that suffered in the recent West Side blaze at Isaac’s Material Handling.

“When I saw that (on the news), I thought it was a pile of tires,” he said of the recent conflagration.

That site was the subject of several safety code compliance calls before the Jan. 10 incident, the San Antonio Express-News has reported.
 
  

Why is aluminum can recycling important? Two-thirds of the world’s aluminum is in use today. Making new aluminum cans from used ones takes 95 percent less energy. Twenty recycled cans can be made with the energy it takes to make a brand new one. n Last year, 54 billion cans were recycled, saving the energy equivalent of 15 million barrels of crude oil. That’s America’s entire gas consumption in one day. Tossing away an aluminum can wastes as much energy as pouring one half of that can’s volume in gasoline. The average employee consumes 2.5 canned beverages a day while at work. The empty aluminum can is worth about one cent. Source: The Aluminum Association

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