Since 2002, AKS Skip Hire has promoted the virtues of responsible recycling as a means of achieving a whole host of objectives, from keeping space in landfills to helping the environment. What is less well known is that recycling can often prove highly profitable for a whole host of reasons. In the UK, households and businesses throw out vast quantities of potentially useful material every year.
Plastics, cardboard, metals, soils, rubble, wood and other every throwaway objects all contain valuable components that can be reused in numerous applications. However, the recent upsurge in electrical goods in the past 20 years means that vast amounts of materials and precious metals are discarded needlessly every year, as individuals and households throw away old, outdated electrical products and buy the very latest technical items and devices.
Whilst consumerism has always seen this type of behaviour, the mechanics of items like iPods, iPads, lap tops and smart phones means that each discarded device contains at least some reusable material, and some of this has great value.
One of the most successful expanding markets for dealing with hardware refuse is in precious metals, as a great degree of copper, palladium and silver, as well as reusable plastics, can often be recovered. However, by far and away the greatest profit is to be made through gold, once a key component of circuit boards in computers and other hardware.
As these metals become less and less available (i.e. rarer) on the global market, and their value continues to rise, worn out household items like connectors, hard disk drives, mobile phones and even various types of plug are increasingly sought after as a means of recovering vast quantities of hard to find materials. As well as taking the time and effort to recycle properly, proactive households individuals can take these items to various waste management centres.
As we have recently moved into an expanded and improved Transfer Station, AKS Skip Hire is in a position to recycle waste materials in higher volumes than ever before, and our aims are becoming ever more ambitious in this regard – last year our waste management centre recycled 85% of the material we received, and we aim to do even better in the coming years, helping the environment and recovering resources that are vital for businesses and consumers alike.