Picking Up Trash on the Side of the Road

Highway scrap metalThere are a lot of things that you typically would not do and picking up trash on the side of the road or highway is most likely one of them.

Unless you are forced into picking up trash on the side of the road by some court system, most of us just speed on by never realizing that there among the candy wrappers and wet napkins are all types of scrap metal objects.

In many states, there are laws that prevent you from stopping, parking, walking or standing along major highways and roads. This is for safety reasons but there is always two ways of doing things.

Within this article on, picking up trash on the side of the road I want to tell you about 2 different ways that you can use to legally be able to cash in on all of the scrap metal that litters the highways and roads in your state.

The first opportunity that you should check into is your local community service work program. These types of programs are ran by businesses as well as community leaders and are aimed at neighborhood as well as road and highway revitalization.

Community service work programs typically hire a company or rent a dumpster to dispose of paper and plastic items that are picked up. However, rusted bikes, car bumpers and other large metal items do not fit into garbage bags.





Contact your local community service work program or stop by when you see them out and about and ask them for permission to follow along and take possession of any scrap metal that their volunteers find.

You could also leave your company’s phone number with the organization to have them contact you when they are performing any community service work in the future.

Court ordered community service programs work in the same way except the people doing the cleanup are not there because they want to help the community. Court ordered community service is often recommended by a judge and off-duty police officers commonly lead the cleanup crews.

This type of community service program also does highway and road cleanup. Contacting them about picking up the metal discards that the workers find will require you to visit the local court or police station. In many cities, the probation department handles the rules dealing with the court ordered community service.

One final recommendation that you could pursue is your local adopt a highway program. The department of transportation in your state offers this program.





The adopt a highway or road program allows companies or individuals to adopt a half mile or more of highway. When you do so, you are responsible for picking up trash and cutting the grass for your stretch of roadway.

This also means that you get to keep any metal objects that you find and the DOT will even come by and pick up all of the trash bags of non-metal items for free.

There is no charge for the adopt a highway program. The DOT also posts a sign on your stretch of road with your name or company’s name on it stating that you have adopted the highway.

The department of transportation in your state may also require you to submit activity logs a handful of times throughout the year. This ensures you are doing what you promised; it additionally allows them to fix any areas of the road that you notate that are problematic more quickly.

As you can clearly see, your future in the scrap metal industry depends on what you are willing to do to achieve success. I share what I know because I want you to be successful and I want you to be able to make money the right way. I scrap metal because of the money that it brings but I also do it because I love the independence and the chance to learn something new everyday.