China: What You May Not Know About It Will Surprise You

Beijing on a clear day.

We have all seen the pictures of the urban smog in many cities in China. In fact, the country is home to 20 of the world’s 30 most polluted cities. Key among the factors involved is that coal produces 70% of China’s energy. The country burns nearly half of the world’s supply.

And it’s not just the air that is of concern. It has been estimated that 90% of China’s urban groundwater is contaminated. Over one third of the fish species native to the Yellow River are now extinct and millions of people in rural areas rely on unsafe water supplies.

Getting The Most From Your Scrap Takes A Little Work But It Can Be Worth It.

Welcome to 2013! We hope you enjoyed the Holiday Season.

Perhaps as one of your new year’s resolutions, you have decided to clean-up and recycle some of the odds and ends around the house or business. You can put your junk in your trunk and just head off to one of our locations in either Mississauga or Oakville. Or, you can consider what could be done to add value to your scrap metal and ensure that the trip is as worthwhile as possible.  

Our conveniently located Mississauga and Oakville locations make dropping off your scrap metal quick and easy. See our home page for addresses.

Pop Up Retail Stores..Good. Pop Up Scrap Yards…Not So Much.

Nike Pop Up Store in Tokyo

One of the newer innovations that we have seen in retailing over the past few years is the development of “Pop-up Stores”. You will recognize these, as they seem to just appear in a particular space for a relatively short period of time and then disappear. As we approach the Halloween and then the Christmas Season, we will see more of them.

The trend has been adopted by a number of well-known companies including Nike, Walmart and Target to name just a few. These pop up stores offer a low cost way to heighten brand awareness, promote particular product lines and, of course, to entice consumers to spend.

Urban Mining For Gold

As we continue to collect more and more electronics at our Mississauga and Oakville locations, we increasingly find ourselves addressing our customers’ curiosity about the nature and extent of the precious metals that they understand are contained in these electronics, particularly gold.

The Rich History Of Gold

Any deep discussion about gold is bound to be a complicated one since it has been in use for at least the past 6,000 years for a variety of purposes, and also because humans have strong emotional ties to gold. The real question here, however, is motivated by the high value of gold today as it relates to its use in electronics and that is why our customers are asking us about it.

The Good Old Penny..RIP Come This Fall

As anticipated in a post we did about a year ago, the federal government announced the demise of the penny in its March 2012 budget. In about six months from now, the Royal Canadian Mint will stop distributing the coin and they will be removed from circulation over time. There is no end date to the process so we can continue to use them and they will retain their value as long as they are around.

We are not alone in this exercise. There are quite a number of countries who have already stopped using their low value coins.

Back On The Blogging Track

Expansion Complete

As you may or may not have noticed, we have taken a brief blogging hiatus over the summer months as our attention was turned towards getting our new location in Oakville up and running. It is now fully operational and we are extremely pleased with the reception we have received from the public, the trades and industry in the community and surrounding municipalities.

As part of this process we also created a new home page for our web site which features, among other things, a price chart that will provide visitors with up to date rates on some of the more popular metals we purchase.
Click here to check it out.

We’re Proud To Be Adding Oakville To Our Community Based Business Model.

We’re very pleased to announce that we will be opening a new location in Oakville, Ontario later this month. This is an exciting project for us, as it will make it more convenient for all our Oakville based customers (individuals,  trades and industry) and, more importantly, it will strengthen our efforts to become a truly community-based service company.

Oakville is the ideal Canadian city, with a wonderful mix of old and new, a fabulous waterfront and a strong industrial and business base.

Oakville Is One Of Canada’s Most Desirable Cities.

In Scrap Metal Recycling, Looks Can Be Deceiving.

It May Look LIke A Duck and Quack LIke A Duck. But Is It Really A Duck?

There is an old maxim that says one should not judge a book by its cover. This has meaning in the scrap metal recycling industry as well. The outward appearance of metal can often fool you into thinking it is something that it is not. Here are some examples and some tips and tricks.

Take a close look at the picture below.

Copper or steel with a copper coating. Hard to tell, isn't it.