A week before Christmas, I fell into conversation with an old Polish scrapper at the ReBuilding Exchange. He had an epic beard (one that may have supported a small ecosystem of bacteria and woodland creatures) and a slight accent from his boyhood in Eastern Europe. He and his brother were there to pick up pallets, which they would then strap to the roof of his biodiesel Mercedes wagon and sell. Small -- 36" x 36" or so -- go for a dollar each, while large -- 36" x 48" -- go for a solid two-fifty.
It seems like small cash, and it is. You have to collect a helluva a lot of pallets to turn a profit. But, as my Polish friend discovered, if you can drive costs down, and find an efficient pick-up route, the economics creep into the black. By using vegetable oil in his car, he's eliminated the biggest cost, fuel. By finding an efficient route, he's cut man-hours to the bone. I saw him again last week, prowling my neighborhood for promising construction dumpsters. The car was rattling within an inch of its life, throwing up a stream of french-fry scented exhaust.
It seems like small cash, and it is. You have to collect a helluva a lot of pallets to turn a profit. But, as my Polish friend discovered, if you can drive costs down, and find an efficient pick-up route, the economics creep into the black. By using vegetable oil in his car, he's eliminated the biggest cost, fuel. By finding an efficient route, he's cut man-hours to the bone. I saw him again last week, prowling my neighborhood for promising construction dumpsters. The car was rattling within an inch of its life, throwing up a stream of french-fry scented exhaust.
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| A pallet recycling yard near my work, at Hoyne and Grand. |
