Is PET Worth It ?

I've done this work and i don't think i would recommend it. It's pretty nasty at times. There are always going to be contaminants in the recycling stream. I've run across ratty old tennis shoes, used condoms, used feminine hygiene products, bottles filled with chew tobacco spit, gasoline, urine, and god only knows what chemicals. You gotta figure too ... a lot of your PET is beverage containers that people have been drinking out of. There's a spit residual that remains on the mouth of the bottle than can have any number of diseases. Used food containers attract rats,mice, and insects. You get yellowjackets flying around your head when you're doing soda bottles because they're attracted to the sugary residual. Sometimes you get stung.

I think it would be an awful lot of work to get that PET to a state of purity where a buyer would pay you that .17 / lb.

The sad part is ... this really isn't the best way to make money with PET. For example : It costs us about 4x the cost per ton to get rid of our mixed recycleables as it does to ship out general household trash. The guy doing our trucking is probably grossing $ 350.00 / hr. before expenses. The guy that owns the recycling facility where we send our stuff is probably making good coin a well. His plant is a multi million dollar affair that is heavily automated. There's not much hand work involved. He charges quite a bit to accept our material, gets government subsidies & low interest loans, and makes that .17 / lb after it's all said & done.

There are other ways of making money with PET as well.

The main thing is that you wanna be the guy that works with his head and not the guy working with his hands at ground level.