A scrap metal collection of around 50 pounds is good enough to earn you a decent return. Sort your collection of metals into different types. You can try sorting and separating light and heavy items. Just make sure you have a system that s well-organized and easy to manage. - Whether you treat scrap metal recycling as a business venture or a profitable and interesting hobby, devote your time and energy for the job. From 2005 alone, 50 percent of all paper products in the country was recycled, which amounted to 42 million tons of recycled paper. Container and packaging recycling has also increased by forty percent. The amount of solid waste ending up in US landfills has also decreased by 9 million tons from 1990 to 2005, and the number continues to decline each year. Most cities and towns today have collection centers for recyclable materials, where these items are cleaned, sorted, and re-processed into new products and materials. Recycling Reduces Contamination, As Well as The Need for New Landfills Recycling provides a number of wonderful benefits for both man and the environment. One method for handling and recycling hazardous wastes is called waste reclamation. Through this method, a toxic or hazardous product is put through a process which makes it reusable again. Many chemical wastes can actually be reused through this recycling method. Examples include mercury, which can be retrieved from mercury barometers and reused again for different purposes. Water is considered gray when you wash clothes, clean vegetables, take a shower, brush your teeth or only lightly contaminate the water. Gray water can also be reused or easily recycled. Black water refers to water that s used to chop meat, rinse fish, or flush the toilet. Black water can not easily be recycled, because it may contain feces or other bacteria, therefore it needs to go to a waste water treatment plant to be properly recycled. Materials such as aluminum, tin, silicone, iron, copper, gold and a wide array of plastics, can be reused or re-processed, which help in reducing the cost of manufacturing new computer units. The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 used to be the main federal law governing the recycling of computers.