Feasible? Recycling bottles with a profit

[ryyeung]

Hi RFDer's,

I've been debating this idea for a long time. I live in BC, where there is a bottling recycling charge of 5-20 cents, depending on bottle size. In Quebec (and maybe other eastern provinces), there is no bottle recycling charge.

So my buddies and I were thinking of buying empty bottles from Quebec at say 4.5 cents, and returning them here for 5 cents, making a 0.5 cent profit per can. Yes, we will have to pay for a truck, but eventually, this fix cost can be break even. I work in the Logistics field, and a container from Montreal to Vancouver costs about $3000. So I need at least 600000 cans just to break even on the trip. I'll probably need 1 million cans just to make profit and recover my fixed costs. Granted the cans will be compressed, so you can fix more. Doing more research, this wholesale recycling will probably be calculated by weight, rather than units of can.

Any suggestions about if this is possible.

[lapopal]

I suppose Newman is in on this scheme? Maybe Kramer will handle the collection front....lol if I'm not mistaken which I rarely am, if your break even is 3000.00 (which it isn't btw not even close, but thats another story) to jam an extra 400,000 cans into a container in order to earn yourself $2,000 Do you have any idea how much time & energy is required to collect all that crap, bring it to a shipping container, you travel expenses etc?

To make 2,000 in a faster and more efficient way I suggest you walk into the nearest McDonalds and ask for an application, and within 8 weeks you will have earned more than this idea of yours.

[ullyeus]

wayyyy back in the day I knew someone who did this from manitoba to saskatchewan...or vice versa...I don't recall.

He was a bum. (not really...but ya know close)

[ryyeung]

I suppose Newman is in on this scheme? Maybe Kramer will handle the collection front....lol if I'm not mistaken which I rarely am, if your break even is 3000.00 (which it isn't btw not even close, but thats another story) to jam an extra 400,000 cans into a container in order to earn yourself $2,000 Do you have any idea how much time & energy is required to collect all that crap, bring it to a shipping container, you travel expenses etc?

To make 2,000 in a faster and more efficient way I suggest you walk into the nearest McDonalds and ask for an application, and within 8 weeks you will have earned more than this idea of yours.

This is $2000 per shipment. I'm sure that with a few eastern provinces combined, I can manage to at least one shipment per week. The start-up will be the only hard part. Once you have a network of dealers to supply you with the cans, you are set. So $2000 x 52 weeks = +$104,000. Not many people earn that much, considering the household income in BC is ~75,000.

[Just Confused]

Aside from all the calculations about cost, have you considered how you're going to find & collect a million cans a week to do this?

I'm in Alberta where charity bottle drives are regular things. From my experience (about 20 air cadet bottle drives in the last 7 years), it takes all day Saturday for about 15 drivers and 30 kids to collect the equivalent of 30,000 cans/bottles. We make about $1500 for each event. You would have to do 30 times that much work every week, not including the time of shipping back to BC. And don't forget that's about 30% cans, and 30% plastic. Glass is about 40% volume and it's not worth much.

Maybe the best thing (if you're young) is to go try it. You'd have a fun time with your buddies back east and have a story to tell your grandkids!

But if I was making a bet, I'd go with the advice from lapopal and try something else.

[zoro69]

Find out when Dragon's Den is having auditions and go with this idea :)

[MizTEcK]

welcome to china, where the streets are clean of all plastic garbage as they're snatched up by hobos doing what you're proposing soon as u throw them down :D

[corrupt123]

I think a better idea would be to collect beer bottles/liquor bottles after long weekends for a quick buck. Not a fulltime job, but some coin on the side. In may of this year for example, I was at wasaga and had to drop off 100+ empty bottles, but the beer store was closed! At least half a dozen cars were at the parking lot in the same situation as me. If someone had been there with a small trailer, they could have taken the whole lot off of our hands, returned them all, and easily made a few hundred bucks.

[lotfi.bm]

In Quebec (and maybe other eastern provinces), there is no bottle recycling charge.

Sorry to burst your bubble but this is not ture.

[Capt.]

I saw a couple guys this morning collecting cans out of people's recycling bins.

[UrbanPoet]

why dont you just drive a truck to quebec... buy a bunch of vodka, then bring it to Ontario to sell...

[imie]

Some people woke us up 2 weeks ago rameging through the blue boxes! they had a cube van!

[GTA_Area]

Once garbage is on the sidewalk it belongs to the government. Wouldn't that mean that these people are stealing from the government which in turn is obviously illegal?

[pupazzo]

I suppose Newman is in on this scheme? Maybe Kramer will handle the collection front....lol if I'm not mistaken which I rarely am, if your break even is 3000.00 (which it isn't btw not even close, but thats another story) to jam an extra 400,000 cans into a container in order to earn yourself $2,000 Do you have any idea how much time & energy is required to collect all that crap, bring it to a shipping container, you travel expenses etc?
.

Lol Yeah, you overload your inventory and you blow your margins on gasoline. Trust me, it doesn't work. :D

[BillsFan]

Evertime THIS quebec'er buys a bottle, he pays a cinq sous. Then he gets it back when he puts it in the crunchy machine at loblaws.
Try buying our beer and selling it to desperate Suburban-Toronto teenagers.

[Justin]

Ok, say you can some how collect 1M cans a week. What are you going to do with them then? It is not like you can take 1M cans to your local recycle depot and have them count them up and provide you with the return. Also, i think those places have a maximum you can get back at any one time.

[michelb]

Never thought it was possible but turns out that some people were recently busted in the US for doing exactly this (turns out that it's fraud to try to get money back for cans you didn't pay deposit on to begin with):

http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/14214576/detail.html

...

The scheme defrauded the Michigan Bottle Deposit Fund, whose proceeds are used to pay for environmental cleanup efforts, Cox said in a statement.

"Each year, this type of activity defrauds the state approximately $13 million," said Col. Peter Munoz, Michigan State Police director.

The charges include maintaining a continuing criminal enterprise, a 20-year felony, and fraud, a 5-year felony, the statement said.

The probe recalled a 1996 episode of "Seinfeld" in which two characters learn about Michigan's 10-cent deposit law and head there with a truckload of 5-cent New York cans, hoping to cash in on the difference, before getting sidetracked.

"A half-million in cash is not 'Seinfeld' humor," Cox spokesman Matt Frendewey said.

...

There might be something to this after all ... just don't get caught (or better yet, figure out a way to do it legally).

[ullyeus]

http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/14214576/detail.html

[speedster7]

OP, did you manage to get around to starting this up?

I would like to hear how you did with it

[BillsFan]

Another option is to just get in to the recycling industry. Buy plastic for less, sell plastic for more. Buy carton for less, sell carton for more. My aunt's friend has been doing it for years, it's his full-time job and he makes very good money.