Despite the title of this blog, I did not grow up in an actual junkyard. It’s might be splitting hairs, but my family owned automotive dismantling centers (or simply wrecking yards). To most folks it amounts to the same thing. But there is a difference. A junkyard takes any kind of junk that can be resold (copper wire, aluminum cans, even Christmas tree lights). But an auto dismantler focuses strictly on cars and trucks.
Here’s another way to view it. Junkyards are recycling centers that take stuff nobody can use and then recycle it into useful products. Think scrap iron recycled into mattress springs. Auto dismantling yards are “reusing” centers because they sell as many salvageable parts from a wrecked car as they possibly can: engine, transmission, drive lines, fenders, headlights, seats, etc. When the car is stripped of all good parts, the remaining scrap iron is sold to a junkyard (often called a scrap yard).
Once a stripped down car is taken to a junkyard, they are sorted, often shredded, sometimes compressed, and sold for use elsewhere. In my era of the 70’s in California most of the scrap was sold to Japan, but now of course most everything goes to China.
Anyway, I call my blog Junkyard Wisdom because it’s a lot more fun than “automotive dismantling center wisdom”.
So why this short lesson on the junkyard world? Because I just finished a fun book called Junkyard Planet: Travels in the Billion-Dollar Trash Trade
As you might guess, I enjoyed the book. It focused on things I related to and it was fun to walk down memory lane. Minter is a good writer who takes his craft seriously, traversing the globe to track down insights and information about the international scrap business. And it is indeed international.
If you own your own business, you will like this book. Minter balances his look of the present while filtering it through his experience in a small business. If you have ever worked in a family business, this book will really ring true for you.
People interested in international trade issues will also enjoy this book as it explores how our recycle bin becomes the source of wealth in other countries. Most folks don’t realize that the global recycling industry is about $500 billion annually and employs more people than any other industry on the planet other than agriculture. So yeah, it’s a big deal, and understanding it a little better is the aim of this book.
Actually, the book strikes me as a “guys” book. Something you might consider as a Christmas gift for a man who reads (there are a few dozen of us left). But anybody with an interest in the things I touched on will enjoy this one. Well worth reading.
