Bert Miles of Anaheim is proud of his new washer and dryer, but the problem is he didn't know what to do with the old ones.
"You go about your life and this stuff just stacks up after a while and I wasn't sure what to do with it," said Miles.
In Southern California you can't just leave old appliances out on the street with your trash, and many junk collectors have no use for them.
But Miles learned about 1-800-GOT-SCRAP, who not only wanted his junk washer and dryer but all the metal scrap that he had -- and Miles couldn't be happier.
"Hey, listen, I'm just glad to get rid of it. I don't care -- hey, do what you want with it," said Miles.
After 1-800-GOT-SCRAP loaded up everything, they took it to one of their 47 recycling plants. Recycling is a big part of the story.
"Although the goal is to be 100 percent recycling, right now we're able to recycle about 85 percent of it," said GotScrap Vice President Cristi Ross.
So Miles's washer and dryer and anything and everything metal is gutted for any valuable materials, then loaded onto a conveyor, where it's taken to a shredder. Along the way, any material not metal is sorted out. Once shredded, the metal pieces are once again used to make things here in the U.S. and overseas.
"And it actually eventually will end up being re-melted where it becomes a new appliance, a new car, new steel, all kinds of things," said Rossi.
Typically if you want to have your scrap picked up it'll cost you about $25. But right now they're running a special: first two weeks it's free, and if you mention "ABC7," they'll pick it up for the entire month of August for free.
And by the way, if you want to bring your metal scrap to the plant yourself, you can. And they will even pay you for it. So here's a way to clean out the garage, help the environment, and make money too.
