Marky Fetters' quick change of heart had been surprising at first, but thinking it over, made sense. He was a Squib, and I was giving him the chance to not only make money using magic, but also thumbing his nose at the Wizarding World. What more could a Squib ask for?
Some bigoted opinions towards Muggles had also rubbed off on him during his upbringing among his Pureblood family, sadly. While these thoughts had lessened over the years of having to live alongside non-magicals, Mark still held some of them, and did not like having to work for Muggles. Working for a Squib like myself was much more palatable for the former criminal information broker and middleman. I would be doing my best to reduce the vitriol he felt towards Muggles all the same.
"How are things going?" I asked as I stepped inside. Unlike what the sight of mountains of trash might lead someone to believe, the buildings inside the junkyard didn't stink. Runes and wards kept the stench out, and complimentary cleaning charms ensured the vehicles and uniforms stayed stink and stain-free as well.
"Things are ramping up," Mark said with a nod. "We've just gotten the contract to handle garbage pickups in Harrow, and Sutton is very interested in our rates. We also bought out two more disposal companies. Full benefits and retainment of the employees included, as you wanted."
"That so? Excellent work!" I praised. "That makes three of London's boroughs our trucks are getting trash from!"
"I think we should slow down a bit, though," Mark suggested, tempering my excitement. "We're already working at full capacity and adding Harrow to the schedule is gonna stretch things real thin until we can get more workers and expand the 'recycling' facilities."
"Good point," I admitted after a moment. "What do you need for that to happen?"
"More Squibs and magicals, boss," Mark replied instantly. "Using lasers to carve the runes and alchemy transmutation formula was ingenious as it cuts down on time and reduces accidents due to mistakes in the arrays from unsteady hands, but we still need people with some magic to actually use them."
"Squibs and discontent Muggleborn are not as numerous as I'd like, though," I said with a sigh.
Despite how much more common they were in recent decades, Squibs were still a minority, with fewer Squibs born per year than Muggleborn. And with no more than two dozen Muggleborn attending Hogwarts every year for the last century, that really said a lot about how rare magical talent actually was amongst the human population.
"I'll put out feelers," Mark promised. "I still know some people on the other side."
"I'll put you in contact with Archibald Tarsworth," I said after thinking it over. "He also has connections in the magical world and knows the right people to talk to in the Ministry regarding Squibs."
"Any little bit helps," Mark agreed with a nod. "Now, take a look, we've streamlined the process pretty nicely I think."
He led me to a balcony that overlooked a large pit inside the junkyard. It had a roof, but that was about it, and dump trucks just drove up to the edge and dropped trash in until it was full.
"Everything being dumped in here is trash. Everything that can't be recycled easily. We're talking food waste, medical waste, and the like."
"What about electronics?" I inquired.
"If a Reparotalisman can't fix it, it's also disposed of," he replied, and I nodded in understanding.
I nodded. The Reparospell and the Ofuda talismans that mimicked it worked by pulling all the broken parts of an object back into said object then magically reattaching them. It wasn't perfect, and if pieces were missing and too far for the spell to latch onto – which was generally further than a yard or two – then it would still restore as much as possible.
A vase with a missing shard would still have said shard missing when repaired, for instance. And the more complex the item, like a computer, the harder it was for it to keep working even if every part of it was reattached perfectly.
"Now, we usually do this when the pit is full, but I'll give you a demonstration right now," Mark said, walking over and flipping a switch. A dull alarm began to blare and lights flashed, followed by the shutters to the dump truck drop-off site closing, preventing any further entry.
"That alarm tells people to stay away," the Squib explained to me, before leading me over to another part of the balcony. There was a door, and he unlocked it, ushering me inside. The room had large windows that let a person inside look down onto the trash pit and the surroundings without any issue.
Mark joined me, then headed to the wall next to the windows. He then pressed his thumb onto a rune which glowed, and then an illusion charm faded, revealing a box on the wall next to the rune that sort of looked like a fuse box. Mark then opened the box with a key and his thumbprint again, revealing a large golden plate covered in complex runes and alchemical sigils. There was also a bottle of my Wiggenweld healing cream and a tiny silver knife in a comportment next to the golden plate.
"Care to do the honors?" he inquired, gesturing to the knife. I nodded and took it, slicing my own thumb open and then smearing my blood onto the center of the plate.
The sigils and runes began to glow an eerie, ruby red, and then that same glow began to emanate from the trash pit. Starting from the bottom, the light enveloped everything, and then it flashed.
I blinked away the spots in my eyes while smearing the Wiggenweld cream onto the cut. Then, I stared into the pit. It had previously been half-full of broken furniture and bags of trash, but now? It was empty! I could now see that the pit was lined with stainless steel that was covered in complex runic sequences and alchemical symbols.
Grinning, Mark motioned for me to follow him, and he lead me out of the balcony room, and down towards the pit. But he then took me off to the side into the warehouse attached to the garage that was full of row upon row of plastic and steel storage drums, shipping containers, and storage bins.
"It wasn't easy setting up the spells to sort everything, nor was it easy to target specifical materials. But check it out!" Mark happily waved a hand towards the containers. He opened one up, allowing me to see it was full of shiny golden pellets!
"Brilliant!" I breathed out.
"The alchemical formula you gave us breaks down anything within the pit into its basic components. Then, the wards and runes separate them by elemental composition and apparates them into their respective containers inside of the warehouse," Mark said giddily. "In the two weeks we've been operating, we've managed to 'recycle' close to forty metric tons worth of trash and turn it all into easily reusable materials!"
Mark showed me around some more. "Metals are their own thing, as well as carbon. Water, nitrogen, and the other gases are stored separately in vacuum sealed containers. Plastic, paper, and oil are also kept in their own areas. Fireproofing wards keep them safe from any accidents that might cause them to catch fire. And we use Vanishing charms on the radioactive materials that sometimes crop up."
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