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Okay,

Ready for a mind blowing business idea. How about a "I can't believe this was just staring me in the face all this time, and I never ever thought of it." idea?

Maybe a; "I am not that desperate yet, but I will file that away under, (WHAT IF)." idea. Yeah, that is what it is for me since I thought of it. Yes I love business, and yes I need more money than what I currently make in order to better support and provide for my family. But, I am not this desperate yet, this idea falls farther down on my list of things to do to make extra money.

Alright enough reading the hook paragraph. Let us get down to the business, of starting a business on a broken shoe string from scratch! What you will need for this endeavor:

1) A Pick-up Truck
2) A Flat-bed Trailer
(if you have one it helps, if not get one later.)
3) 12 Plastic Open Top 55 Gallon Drums
(You can start with less)
4) A computer
(You better have one if your reading this, but if not read my other article "Getting Free Stuff 101 here: http://www.xomba.com/getting_free_stuff_101 )
5) Miscellaneous; Spray Paint, Work Gloves, Work Clothes, Clipboard, Bungee Cords, Roto-Zip, Tarp, and more (read below).

To begin with you will need to acquire a few plastic drums either with removable tops or just cut the tops off of them with a roto-zip. Now would be a good time to attach a couple of Rope handles to the top lips of the barrel, or you may opt to cut out a couple of hand holds. It will take the same amount of time either way, but rope costs more money so you decide. Barrels around me cost around $15 each. But, I did have an opportunity one time where I advertised in the free paper, looking for barrels, and I had a company call me offering all I could haul away. Three problems though. I didn't have the ability to pick up more than 4 or 6 at a time. They were located over 40 miles away. And they contained chemicals that would probably not be friendly to my ground, my pets, my kids, my garden, or myself. No way to detox them safely. Make good choices or you'll pay for it later.

Now the business plan is this. You are going to offer a small neighborhood recycling program. How can you implement this? First you had better make sure that there is not one already in place offered by your city. If there is you are probably S.O.L. and you can stop reading this article here.

Good your still here, so you must be ready to strike out on your own in this little business venture? Take your plastic drums and spray paint and your hand-cut cardboard stencil (which you can make by tracing a simple recycle design from your computer, or you can buy custom vinyl stickers....) and mark your drums, with your official sounding program name. You may want to put more info on the side of the drum than your name, you might want to also put:

1)Plastic and Aluminum only.
2)Your contact Number
3)The Collection Day of the week.
4)Your slogan...

The idea of marking the barrels is 4 fold. You want them to look as official as possible. You want them to remind the clients of what to recycle, and when to put out the can.
And most importantly you want them to be an advertisement to the rest of the neighborhood and cars that drive by enticing them to call and request their own.

Type up and print out a simple recycling contract that basically says you are lending the plastic barrels to the customer and that you own them. That they agree to recycle only the following items I.E.(Plastic No.1 containers and Aluminum Items). You may opt to request a deposit on each barrel for the value of the barrel. But this may be a hard selling point. You may also opt to bill them once per month, for some nominal amount if they fail to put out the barrel at least once per month. You may also want to bill them if they request a replacement barrel if they have damaged or lost it, other than normal wear and tear.

SO, you printed out a contract, had it proof read, maybe even brought it to a local paralegal to make it appropriately legal to your area. So print up some copies and grab your clipboard. Load your barrels into your pick-up and head on down the road. Door-to-door.

Let's be smart about this now. Don't go haphazardly down the streets. Pick one street, not necessarily your own and go house to house, drop off one barrel to each resident that wants to join your program. Collect their name, phone number, address, and make sure you assign them a collection day that does not fall on the same day as their trash day! And also make sure it is a day you will without a doubt pick up their trash, one slip up here and your screwed. Also document which addresses decline, and which do not answer. (If you have more resources, you could have some flyers printed up and you could drop them off at the homes that do not answer. If you have a business partner all the better, this won't be a cake walk just yet.)

Once you have a dozen people or (however many barrels you have) signed up for service. Your past the hard part. The next part is to go out as promised on "Collection Day" and pick up the recyclables. This shouldn't take long driving down one street to collect about 12 barrels worth in your truck bed. Once you have finished the collection, it is off to the local recycle center to cash in. Once per week you can make this run, and start a simple small cash flow. Saving up to build to your program shouldn't take too long.

Buy more barrels, get a trailer, put signs on it, hire an answering service, make flyers, send out invoices, etc.

You are in business. What did it take to start. Well that all depends on what you really had to purchase to get started. Many things are available free. I believe that $1000 would easily start and float this business.

Want to go legit? That's easy too. Apply for a business license, open a business checking account, set up a small office at home, make plans to expand. You have 7 different days a week to serve your area. Pick a different day for each neighborhood. You may even be able to garner public, or charitable support.

I plan to revise this article few times, so bear with me on that part please. Hopefully it isn't too "messy" to get some good ideas out of it.

Plan well, do your homework and reach for success.

Collecting recyclables isn't exactly a glamor business but a lot of people are not thinking about doing it either.

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