I've recently started a small business taking people's junk. Like most people who do this, my plan is to go through each load for any valuables, then pull out any scrap metal, then anything re-sellable to either a second store or eBay, then Goodwill, anything else to landfill. I look forward to learning a lot here, because I know very little about the values of different metals, how to best "harvest" them, etc.