[Dr Winston O Boogie jr]

Originally Posted by KathieI

I don't believe that a recycling plant is a high-profit business to be in. There is a lot of work that has to get done on their part before the materials can be ground down and sold to manufacturers to be used in new packaging. Let's take large plastic bottles for instance:
a) they need to be sorted by the type of material. There are 6 types of plastic materials that bottles are made of and a 7th which is tossed because it is a combination of different plastics and cannot be recycled.
b) generally they only recycle large containers over 8 oz. and over. so anything smaller also gets tossed
c) then they have to separate them again by color, I would guess, opaque colors vs natural colors
d) if any bottles contain labels or caps they must be removed, especially if the label contains any metallic substance in its substrate
e) then there is probably a very detailed SOP guidelines they must process in order to assure that the recycled material does not contain any contaminants, bacteria, or other harmful substances.
e) then they put these into large grinding bins and break them down into pellets which are stored waiting for a buyer of packaging materials who can use them.

This is only for plastic bottles. Now think about all the other types of materials, metal cans, alum cans, corrugate boxes, cereal or folding boxes, glass (which is probably the easiest material to recycle). Did I miss one??

Have you been to a recycling plant? I have, quite a few. If you can't automate some of the processes above, which is very hard to do, it is very labor intensive.

Making millions on recycling? I don't think so. On top of that, the final user of these materials who is using recycled material to produce new components, probably pays a slight upcharge for the recycled material compared to virgin material.

Inside the world of for-profit recycling - The Week

Recycling E-Waste Becoming Big, Profitable Business | Industry Leaders Magazine

From Waste to Wealth

There are many more stories if you're interested in looking them up.

As someone said, the people that pick up our trash simply sell the recyclables to another company. They make money for doing nothing really. We do all the work for them.

And let me reiterate, I have no problem with these business. In fact, I think that they are good for the economy and produce jobs. But like I said, I have no interest in being an unpaid employee.