THE RECYCLING BUSINESS and THE RAG MAN by WALT BARRETT

You don’t have to be a big time college graduate, or the wizard of Wall Street to make a lot of money in the recycling business. The best part is it’s a Green Business. Every day thousands of tons of metals, lumber, and other materials are sent to the landfills in this country. All you have to do is drive down any street on trash pickup day, and you can find literally tons of iron, aluminum, brass, copper, and car batteries, just to name a few items.
There are people who make a living just by picking up old appliances and refurbishing them. Have you been to buy a new washer or dryer lately? The sidewalks are littered with them, and many of them only require simple repairs! There are plenty of families that would be more than happy to own a working refurbished washer and dryer set. Parts are easy to get, and are not that expensive if you have a working relationship with a parts supplier that knows you are a pro.
Every time I go by a construction site, especially the big union jobs where large buildings are involved I am appalled at what I see going into the dumpsters. It’s as if money grows on trees! I have written many times about building Micro Homes to alleviate the housing shortage. Well there is enough waste coming off these jobs to build thousands of Micro Homes!
I have seen people sweep up expensive nuts, bolts and other very expensive hardware and simply throw it in the trash. I’m sure if you think about it you can recall many instances of such waste, especially by big businesses.
I would like to suggest that if you need extra money or would like to start a business, that you give serious consideration to starting a recycling business. Get a good clean used pickup truck and start one of these businesses. There are people always looking for bargains on used lumber and recycled metal products. Check your local paper for the daily scrap metal prices. Hold on to your scrap for the higher prices. Keep some records of the market prices, and speaking of records, keep some kind of accurate record of all your financial transactions. Always work from a checkbook, and don’t mess around with the taxman! Personally, we keep all of our records on Quick Books and have a CPA in four times a year. They also do our taxes, and the cost is surprisingly low for a small business.
The main thing is to do something -- anything, but don’t sit around forever just talking about it! Make a business plan and start moving forward. Do not be paralyzed by fear of failure!
Walt Barrett President
A to Z Global Marketing Inc. – An American Company! © 2007
401 725 8141
www.free2advertize.com
An afterthought:
The Rag Man
When I was a young boy there was an old man who came around once a month with a horse and wagon. My mother would save her old rags and scrap metal, and he would give her a few cents a pound for the stuff. Those were interesting times in the great depression and the Korean War both of which I am a proud survivor, and never want to be cold or hungry again! The old man would drive up and down the streets in his horse drawn wagon yelling "Rags, rags, anybody got any rags?" I'd go running in the house shouting "Mom, The rag man is here!" That's the only name we ever knew that old man by, and yet, his descendants own one of the largest metals company in America today! Just remember, it all has to start somewhere!
Walt Barrett

BIG SAVINGS ON OUR ELECTRIC BILLS by WALT BARRETT

Can you imagine saving up to $41.00 a year just by changing a single light bulb? Well believe me, it’s entirely possible. We have five flood lamps on a dimmer switch in our new home, and they were chewing up some serious electricity. We have been switching out the old style light bulbs, and this weekend it was the kitchen’s turn. We had to make a trip to the Home Depot anyway because we needed the waterproof wire, the wire connectors, and the marine sealer for our solar water pump installation movie we are about to shoot, and post on the Internet. While we were in the electrical department we also picked up six of the new energy saving kitchen flood lamps. They are packed two to a package, and a bargain at $9.95 for a twin pack. Each lamp only requires 14 Watts of input power to output 65 Watts of nice soft white light. Each lamp will save you $41.00 a year on your electric bill, and to further the bargain they will last 4 times longer than a standard lamp! This is a huge savings of not only money, but of electricity and carbon emissions. As far as I’m concerned they can stop making the old fashioned light bulbs today. Now, even if you have so much money that it’s falling out of your pockets, and you could care less about your electric bill, you should still do the responsible thing and switch over to the new lamps just to cut down on the national energy use, and carbon foot print, even if you think that the whole global warming thing is junk science. Switching over to energy saving lamps is the cheapest insurance policy on the future that you could ever buy, and you save a lot of money in the bargain. Let’s say that you save $500.00 in one year, look at the gasoline or fuel oil that will buy!
I think it’s time we got a lot more serious about saving energy!

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Walt Barrett President
A to Z Global Marketing Inc.