There's no doubt that when you're on a building site, there's plenty that goes to waste, and plenty that can be recycled. Recycling is the way to go with any materials that can be recycled, because it prevents landfill from filling up too quickly, and it can reduce the cost of building materials in the future. Scrap metal recycling, for example, is a booming practice. Recycling metals is far more efficient and less energy intensive than extracting raw materials out of the ground to produce new metals. Best of all, recycling scrap metals can help to earn you money from the scrap you collect, with companies paying cash for scrap when you bring it in for processing. So can recycling help you earn money when disposing of excess materials on the building site? Here we take a look at the process of recycling and whether it will work for you.
Look At What Can Be Recycled
When you're on a building site, there's so much building material that might not be used that can be used to recycle. Of course, the kind of materials and amount of materials available on any given building site depends on how big the building site is and what is being done. There will be a lot more valuable material to be recycled on a commercial site than on an average residential site, but that doesn't mean there might not be plenty to recycle on a residential site.
When you get to the building site, make sure you have a vehicle to load the scrap onto that can hold the amount you need to transport. Look at the building site to see what's available. One of the more common materials available to recycle is steel, with scrap steel prices making the recycling of this metal often worthwhile. Other scrap metals that can also be recycled include steel, copper, aluminium, stainless steel, brass, bronze and lead.
Categorise the Materials
When cleaning out the building site it's important to categorise and identify what you should take to a processing centre to be recycled and what needs to be taken to the tip. The materials you could encounter on a building site, a renovation site or a demolition site include copper piping, electrical wiring, whitegoods, copper boilers, hot water tanks, lead wheel weights, batteries, aluminium extrusions and stainless steel sinks.
Once you've gathered the materials that you have on your site, sort them according to the type of metal or alloy that they are made of. This makes it easier once you get to the processing plant in order to separate the materials more easily to weigh them.
Maximise The Value of Your Scrap
Get your scrap materials sorted well in order to maximise the value of your scrap. This is called pre-processing, which is an important step in getting the materials ready for the processing plant and making sure you get the best price for your scrap. Pre-processing involves going through the materials to get them most ready for the scrap yard.
This can include removing steel screws from aluminium extrusion in order to attain the correct weights and allow for processing without contamination, stripping PVC shielding from electrical cable to remove the non-metal components from the metal wires and removing joins and welds from copper piping to obtain a more pure quantity of the metal.
Choose A Recycler
Once you have your materials ready to take to the scrap processing place, research which plant has the prices and the capability to process the metals you have. Check that the plant you are going to accepts the metals you have collected from your building site. Some recyclers also have minimum quantities of certain materials that they will accept for recycling, so make sure you have that amount before you take in the materials for recycling.
You can research the recycling plants online before you go in to check the scrap metal prices and the types of metal they accept in order to save time and get the best money for your scrap metal when recycling.
