One of the easiest - and in fact one of the oldest ways of
One of the easiest - and in fact one of the oldest ways of
making extra money is by collecting old newspapers and selling them to
a recycling plant in your locale.
Believe it or not, you can develop a very respectable income
collecting and selling paper to the recycling centers. It certainly does
not take any education, specialized training or experience; it's as
simple as saving your old newspapers and turning them in to a central
collection depot.
Some "paper recyclers" are making more than $100,000 a year in
this business. If other people are doing it, then there's no reason you
can't do it! About the only equipment you'll need is a pickup truck or
trailer that you can pull along be hind your personal car. We even
found one "old timer" who was collecting paper in this era with a
pushcart! While interviewing him, we found that he was deliberately
choosing not to expand, although he very definitely could have.
The prices being paid for paper these days by the recycling
centers will astound you (and remember that the quotations we give here
may have escalated sharply since our research). For instance, old news
papers are commanding $50 per ton and more; used cardboard, $75 a ton;
and high grade office paper as much as $120 per ton. This kind of money
for used paper that you can generally pick up for free can move you onto
Easy Street in a hurry. Everything, of course, depends on how well
organized you are, and how hard you work at building your business.
Make no mistake about it, we live in a paper world. Americans
use 200 million tons of paper each year - for everything from daily
newspapers to books and cardboard boxes. After quick use, we throw away
at least 100 million tons of this paper, almost all
of which could be recycled. This means that there's about 8 billion
dollars worth of paper out there that can be collected and recycled each
year. So if you are looking to start a business with real profit
potential, what are you waiting for?
Just look around your own home. In the garage or basement, for
instance. What do you do with the old newspapers after you've read
them? How about all the mail you get each week? Chances are this waste
paper just piles up in some corner of the garage or
basement until one of the kids asks if he can haul it off for the school
or cub scout paper drive. Or maybe your wife and kids get ambitious some
weekend, clean out the garage and haul it all off to the collection
truck at one of the local shopping centers. (We said maybe!)
It's true that selling stacks of newspapers you've accumulated
during the past couple of months or so won't make you rich. In fact,
it's doubtful your own accumulation of paper will add up to a ton a
year, and that certainly won't amount to much in extra
income. But think about the tonnage involved in the stacks of old
newspapers you could collect from your relatives, friends and neighbors.
You could easily collect a l00-pound sack of old newspapers from the
people in your neighborhood each week - and that's your immediate
neighborhood.
And then think about the total extra income you would have when
you have hauled all this paper down to the recycling depot. If you're
serious, and get yourself properly prepared, you can easily make $300 or
more every weekend, and it won't involve all
your time. Some planning and effort on your part are the prime
requisites.
Start by clearing a space in your garage for storage. One side
of a two-car garage, or any 8 by 12 foot space should be sufficient. If
you have a garden shed that's dry, that would work well also. Some
paper collectors even rent space in a neighborhood mini-warehouse.
We've even seen some paper collectors store their collected paper on
pallets in their backyards, using tarpaulins over it to keep it dry.
The important thing is to have a space available to store your collected
paper until you're ready to haul it to the recycling depot.
Being a firm believer in doing as little as possible of the
physical work involved in any business, I recommend you hire people to
do a lot of this for you. By that I mean you should contact all the cub
scouts, girl scouts, and civic organizations in your area; tell them
you'll pay them money for the paper they collect and turn in to you. At
the same time, contact the counselors at the schools and colleges in
your area and tell them you'll pay them for all the paper they collect.
The idea is to get everyone in your area collecting paper for you,
eliminating the need to do the actual collecting yourself.
How much of the gross profit you allow or pay these people who
do the actual collection is up to you. The average rate is $25 to $30
per ton when you are getting $50 per ton.
In the beginning, you may have to make up a sign and tape it to
the side of your pick-up or car, and "pound the pavement" yourself, but
you would expect to do this in starting any business. Basically,
there's nothing to this excepting that it takes time you could be using
to do other things; but is there anything more important than getting
your new business "off the ground?"
A simple sign such as JOE'S PAPER RECYCLING SERVICE - Phone
123-4567, is about all that's necessary. You could have this made up on
a magnetic mat at most quick print shops. Have a college art student
make one up for you on butcher paper, or have a professional sign
painter produce one for you on heavy card stock.
With this sign on the side of your pickup, car, or trailer,
simply drive through the residential neighborhoods of your area. Park
in the middle of a block, get out and start knocking on doors, asking
the residents if they have old newspapers or cardboard boxes they'd like
for you to haul away for them. Generally, you'll get an armload of old
newspapers at every house. Simply carry them to your pickup or trailer,
then go on to the
next house.
If you'll set up a definite route to follow, certain streets on
certain days about once every two weeks, you'll find the homeowners will
have stacks of paper waiting for you. Regardless of whether the person
answering the door gives you a stack of papers, always leave a business
card at each home.
Some paper recyclers offer to pay the people saving newspapers
for them, and having it ready for them when they make their collection
rounds. Generally, this isn't necessary. If you'll develop regular
collection days for each street or neighborhood,
you'll find the people putting papers out for you just as they set out
their garbage for collection.
There are even some paper recyclers who charge the people to
haul their paper away. This isn't advisable, because once you start
hauling rubbish, you'll end up doing clean-up work, and hauling more to
the dump than you do to the recycling depot.
Once you have your collection routes organized, you can hire
students to make your collection rounds after school, and haul the paper
to your storage center. You can set up crews of three - one to drive
the truck or car while the others knock on doors on each side of the
street.
Depending on how much paper each route gives you every two
weeks, you could have a crew working several routes each day for minimum
wage, probably so much per truck or trailer load, and expect to collect
a couple of tons of paper for every three hours
they work.
Again, by hiring other people to do the actual collection work
for you, you'll not only free yourself for other work, but you'll be
making more money: Three people can do more in less time than one
person.
The next thing is to set up an area-wide collection depot. This
could be a pre-fab building on a vacant lot, a vacant used car lot, or a
closed service station.
In setting up an area-wide (or neighborhood) collection depot,
you will need space - some sort of shed to store or stack your papers in
until you load them up and haul them to the recycling center where you
sell them. You'll need a scale to weigh them, and some sort of office
or desk space to manage your cash and books.
You'll need space enough for your customers to drive in beside
the scale and unload their papers, and at the same time an arrangement
whereby you can pay them immediately. A vacant service station would be
ideal. Your customers can pull in just as if
they were going to purchase gasoline; you could have your scales set up
between the driveways where the gas pumps are usually located, and store
your accumulating loads in the service area of the building.
In most cities or counties, you'll need a business license or
permit. For more details, see our report, Basic Steps To Starting Your
Own Business.
You'll need a couple of signs, one on each side of your
driveway. These will announce the fact that you buy old newspapers.
They need not be anything fancy, just simple attention-getting
announcements that you're open for business and paying money for paper.
Generally, the going rate for newspapers dropped off at a central
collection depot is $.02 per pound, and the papers need not be bundled.
This will give the sellers $40 a ton for dropping them off, and at $50 a
ton, that will work out to $10 per ton profit for you. (Again, these
rates are rising, so be sure you are absolutely current by checking out
the going price in your area.)
In addition to old newspapers, you should organize your time and
schedule to call upon all the businesses, stores and warehouses in your
area. Talk to the business owners or store managers and ask them if you
can haul away their old cardboard boxes.
If there's competition in your area, you might end up having to
pay for these boxes, provided they're clean. The thing to do is to call
upon everybody who uses paper products or cardboard boxes. Remember,
the more people you have giving you paper, the
more money you are going to make. Many already established recycling
services do not bother with the smaller stores and warehouses, but these
add up quickly if you are diligent in finding a number of them.
Check close by in your surrounding area, and find out if the
businesses are satisfied with their present pick-up service. Ask first
if you can "have" their old boxes; many of the smaller stores will give
them to you because it decreases the load for their rubbish service to
haul away. Where necessary, offer to pay per pound if they'll save them
for you.
As mentioned before, the important thing is to get everyone
providing paper for you - people collect and have it ready for you to
pick up when you drop by on your designated collection day. Besides
that, you start making really big money when you can park your truck in
one place and fill it up from a group of closely located stores or
businesses. With this is mind, you could conceivably drive through four
blocks, making one stop in the middle of each block, and have a ton or
more of paper or cardboard
boxes every fourth block.
One other thing you'll need in order to efficiently handle
cardboard boxes is a sharp knife with which to slit the sides of the
boxes and flatten them Out as you load them onto your truck or trailer.
A simple "handyman's utility knife" costing about $5 will handle this
chore for you with ease. When you buy one, though, be sure to buy an
extra supply of blades as well, because cutting through cardboard will
dull your knife very quickly.
Another paper products source: the offices in your area,
particularly those with computers. The age of computers has ushered in
more reports for offices than ever before, adding reams and reams of
paper to the average office trash basket. When you
visit these offices, take along a couple of "Save-a-Tree" boxes and ask
the office people to discard all their waste paper into these boxes for
you - letters, envelopes, outdated reports and files. You can usually
get the "Save-a-Tree" boxes at your recycling depot, and when full,
we're talking about 35 to 45 pounds of paper. Most offices will fill
one of these boxes in a week or two, depending, of course, upon their
volume of paperwork. And while you're on this kind of "foraging" trip,
don't forget to check in at all the print shops. They waste and throw
away almost as much paper as they sell.
It will pay you to contract for a quarter page ad, or the
largest ad available that you can afford, in the yellow pages of your
area telephone and business directories. Whether or not you advertise
the prices you pay in the ad is entirely up to you, but
generally it's not a good idea to do so, because you would be stuck with
those rates for over a year. You might word your ad to explain that you
pay one rate per pound when paper is brought to you, and another rate
when you pick up and haul away.
At the same time, you should run a regular classified ad,
perhaps even one with more words in the Contract Jobs section of your
daily paper. Your best advertising days will be Thursday through
Saturday. These are the days when people are specifically
thinking about cleaning up around the house or their offices. Also,
these are the days when people think about what they can do to earn
extra money.
This is the kind of business that "snowballs" with visibility
and word-of-mouth advertising. It will definitely benefit you, then, to
join the various civic and service clubs in your area, attend their
luncheons and mingle with the business leaders in your area. Volunteer
to assist in some fund-raising events, and whenever possible, become a
guest speaker and tell about your business.
It isn't hard to stand up before a group of people and talk
about your business, particularly if you know what you're talking about
and believe in what you're saying. It does take at least an outline of
a script, perhaps a few notes, a rehearsal and the essential ingredient
of enthusiasm.
Make your talk interesting and informative. Do some research
and present statistics on how much paper the people of this country use
each year. Explain the limited supply of timber, and the need to
recycle as much as possible. Detail how these facts
and figures opened your eyes, and caused you to do something about it -
to open your own recycling center. And then, lead your talk into
explaining how the recycling business is an avenue for everyone to
benefit: the ideal fund-raising endeavor; a cleaner environment; and a
chance to preserve some forest land.
Getting free publicity for a recycling center can be easy. In
addition to serving as guest speaker before civic and service groups in
your area, you may find radio and television stations and newspapers,
and even weekly shopping guides anxious to give
you time or space.
By all means, try to get a story into these people detailing
your grand opening, follow-up with appearances on talk shows, and press
releases about the different organizations raising money by collecting
newspapers and turning them in to you. Set up a contest among the
different organizations, with prizes for the teams or organizations
collecting the most paper. Hold special "Seniors' Days" when you pay
extra for all paper turned in by persons over a certain age. Keep an
eye out for angles such as the largest amounts turned in, and stories
about your regular collectors who keep turning in paper regularly until
they attain money goals.
Emphasize in your publicity contacts that recycling is a kind of
community service that benefits all citizens. You're cleaning the
environment, conserving timber, and putting money into the pockets of
all who participate. Think about it; submit press releases to the
media; calling them and inviting them to cover human interest stories
emanating from your business!
This business takes organization, some energy on your part, and
at least in the beginning, your time. But if you put forth the effort
as we have outlined, there's no reason you shouldn't easily realize a
very comfortable income with your own RECYCLING BUSINESS. It takes
effort on your part, but if you're looking for a lucrative business, you
have here a plan to act on!located stores or businesses.
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