Get Paid To Advertise Your Business

Or, You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet?

Imagine getting paid to advertise your business, church or non-profit. Well it just so happens that one business in Greensboro, North Carolina is offering advertising to other Greensboro businesses and non profits and is paying the businesses they advertise.

Here’s how it works: Sell the recyclables your business, church or nonprofit collects to Salvage America and we will advertise your business on SalvageAmerica.us, RecycleBills.com and other websites while paying you for your post consumer and/or post industrial recyclables. Your business gets paid, is greener and gets needed advertising in these hard economic times.

And if you think this is big, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!

Metal Theft Set To Increase

Or, Dumb And Dumber?

RecycleBill knowingly buys stolen metal and then I report it to the cops. Our business takes a loss but we believe it's the right thing to do. One of my happiest days on the job was when Greensboro Police officers handcuffed and arrested 3 metal thieves who were still parked on my 70' truck scale waiting for me to record their outbound weight.

Some dummy in Bay County, Florida left 55 gallon drums filled with copper outside the building. Two even dumber dummies got arrested for stealing the copper filled drums.

The police in Claremore, Oklahoma are looking for help in solving a rash of high dollar copper thefts. With that much money the thieves will probably die of drug overdoses before they get caught.

In nearby Harden County, North Carolina, 8 men have been arrested in the theft of 15000 pounds of copper wire. Sounds to me like too many people knew where the copper was being stored. If the local police would have used ScrapTheftAlert.com I would have known about this one the very day it was reported stolen. Seriously folks, no matter where you live in the US or Canada you need to call your local police and make them aware of the existence of ScrapTheftAlert.com.

There is hope. California's 3 day waiting period for payment for scrap copper gives police time to investigate copper thefts before the robber gets paid. And being that most copper thefts are done to make quick money to buy drugs it slows down the drug trade as well.

$60,397,818.oo That's the cost you and I paid to our electric service providers for their copper theft losses.

And to think, people think the South is behind the times. Folks in Cape Cod should be up in arms that the state legislature didn't pass a bill years ago. Now the plan is to cripple local recyclers because their elected leaders didn't do their jobs. Dummies!

And finally, while it's not copper, the fact that beer companies only charge a $35.oo deposit on a stainless steel keg that cost $150.oo to make is just asking to get ripped off. Morons!

How To Make The World Greener

Or, Put Green In Your Pockets

Thanks to Lijit you can now add RecycleBills Local Recycler Search to your own blog or website so that even more people across the US, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand can find out how to get paid for their post-consumer recyclables. Click here to get the code then copy and paste the code to your website or blog so that it displays like you see below.

RecycleBills Local Recycler Search Lijit Search Add Your Recycling Center

I guess that means we're Lijit.

How To Identify And Prepare Scrap Metals, Part 12

Or, There's Gold In 'Dem 'Der Hills?

Gold is something RecycleBill has yet to buy at his Greensboro recycling center. And the odds are good I never will. The closest I've come to date is a gold wedding band I haven't seen her wear in almost 30 years. Come to think of it, it's been several years since I saw her...

From time to time folks bring what they think is gold to the recycling center and experience has taught me that even without looking at it, that 10 pound chunk of metal in your hand is not and never will be gold. Gold is like those valuable aluminum soda can tabs in that if it were that valuable you'd not be able to get your hands on it.

So what is that chunk of gold colored (yellow) metal made of? I'm betting aluminum or steel. Let's test it to see.

Remember the magnet test? If the magnet sticks to it then it's plated iron or steel. Cased closed. What's it plated with? Probably brass but it won't matter 'cause the plating will cost more to recover than it's worth. You're local recycling yard will buy it for iron and steel prices-- no more, no less.

Hit it with your file? Is it silvery white or dull gray inside? Then it's probably aluminum.

Odds are good your block of metal is brass. It could possibly be bronze but large pieces of bronze are becoming increasingly rare. The most common use for bronze is small round bushings (bearings) for cheap electric motors but you might also get your hands on bronze if you happen to be in the boat business. Bronze is sometimes used to make saxophones but saxophones rarely, if ever, come in the shape of a block.

Like bronze, Brass is an alloy of copper and if by chance you do have a 10 pound block of yellow metal then I'd put my money on brass. If it looks a little green then I'd be swayed back towards bronze but if the surface is sort of spongy or hard and shiny then I'd lean towards brass. The most common sources of post consumer brass are plumbing fixtures and fittings where the brass is most often chrome plated.

Could it be a 10 pound chunk of copper? Frankly I doubt it.

As for how to identify post consumer gold. Stick a pin in it. You see, gold is the softest of all metals and if you can easily stick a pin in it then odds are good you've got real gold or a gold alloy that contains gold. And if you think you're going to find any gold laying on the ground then I suggest you take some prospecting classes and seek out the nearest gold assayer's office and not your local recycling center.

This has been a part of my series on How To Identify And Prepare Post Consumer Recyclables. I hope it has helped.

Is Greensboro's Drinking Water Safe?

Or, Stiring Up Sediment?

Recyclebill isn't qualified to test drinking water but according to the National Tap Water Quality Database, the City of Greensboro, North Carolina's drinking water was found to have levels of haloacetic acids, Chloroform, Bromodichloromethane and trihalomethanes that exceed health limits. You can view the reports here.

Looks like solar stills and atmospheric water generators might be a good green business ideas right here in Greensboro.