New Pendleton recycling center reaps millions

[unhappycamper]

New Pendleton recycling center reaps millions
By Gidget Fuentes - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Apr 29, 2008 6:27:26 EDT

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. — The beefy trucks that arrived that morning had dumped a huge pile of cardboard and paper at his fenced-in center, where a mound of refuse nearly towered over the crew — and Charles Bradshaw couldn’t be any happier.

Bradshaw, manager of Camp Pendleton’s newest recycling center, knows the value of discarded stuff.

The piles of used soda cans, boxes, detergent bottles and a dozen metal bins filled with spent brass aren’t trash — they’re worth lots of money, as much as $1 million or $2 million, in fact, in the commercial and international reuse markets.

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In the super-heated market for hard metals, the center’s metal yard alone grossed $1.5 million last year, the bulk of the center’s $2.1 million gross revenue. It was more than enough to pay the $600,000 bill for the newly expanded center’s annual overhead.

Bradshaw, giving visitors a tour after the center’s April 22 grand opening ceremony, stood beside a dozen bins filled nearly to the rims with shell casings, the discarded remains of live-fire weapons training collected at the base’s vast ranges.


Rest of article at: http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2008/04/marine_recycle_042808w/