When I was little my dad used to take me on trips with him hauling loads of scrap metal into recycling yards around the area. From a young age I began picking up cans, bottles, and anything metal or glass I could find along the roads to take with dad on his trips.
Hauling in scrap metal is something that's dirty, risky, and hard work as the metal has to be sorted and loaded, often times with jagged edges and rusty bits that would send most doctors running for vials of tetanus vaccination and suggesting a new line of work. With the risks involved and the relatively low profits it's something most people are simply not interested in doing. With a never ending supply of things breaking there are those usually from a rural environment that continue to scour the hills dragging up anything metal they find to work up a load.
Despite the hard work and low profits hauling scrap metal is great for the environment as it cleans up discarded junk and returns otherwise trashed items that would fill up landfills back into processors and eventually smelters to once more be made into useful products. In fact, most of the metal items you use today are more than likely an end product of the recycling process.
Over the years it's hard to tell just how much scrap me and my family have hauled in as it's been a family practice for at least three generations and in that time we've hauled in everything from the kitchen sink to heavy machinery, cars, printing presses, buses, and just about any other item made of metal you can think of. Unlike most fair weather scrappers who jump in when the prices rise we've been content to continually haul scrap even in low price markets due to the benefit on the environment and the fun family time it provides.
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