With technology advancing so rapidly these days, you’re bound to have old mobile phones lying around your house that are of no use to you. You can get some good money and help the environment by recycling mobile phones with companies such as Mobile Cash Mate.

Be aware that you many not receive the amount of cash quoted by such websites, depending on you phone’s condition. But if your old phone is simply taking up drawer space, anything is better than nothing.

http://www.mobilecashmate.co.uk/

If you’ve recently been a student, or you have a child or grandchild that has, you may have some untapped gold at your fingertips. Those  old revision notes weren’t just useful for passing your exams, they can also be used to generate extra cash.

Upload your notes along with your asking price to sites such as Notesale, to get paid by other students  following in your footsteps. Not a fortune maker, but why not cash in on what you already own but no longer need?

http://www.notesale.co.uk/

Fancy making extra money simply by voicing your opinions? Research companies are always recruiting new members to answer surveys and test new products via online surveys. For a few minutes of form filling, you can make up to £3 per survey. Popular sites for this include Opinion Outpost, My Survey and One Poll.

You won’t make a fortune doing this, but it’s something you can do any time of the day or night or in down-time between other money making activities.

http://uk.mysurvey.com

https://www.opinionoutpost.co.uk/

https://members.onepoll.com

A peaceful working environment is  meant to be conducive to productivity. Entrepreneurs in Sweden have turned this ideology into a business initiative by creating mobile off-the-grid workplaces equipped with work related necessities including wifi, coffee machines and conferences rooms. Think posh Portacabins in the woods. Companies can hire some or all of the space for a single workday or longer. The offices can accommodate up to 35 people and workers can stay the night at a local campsite.

Almost 93% of the UK is not built on, so therefore there would be a plethora of suitable land for this kind of  venture. Companies are certainly keen to raise efficiency of their workers, shown by the popularity of corporate activity days and the like,  so maybe this could be the next big thing in the employee motivation market?

We’re all keen to reduce our carbon emissions (or we should be!) and the only mode of transport more eco-friendly than riding a bike, is riding someone else’s bike. Yellow Backie is an Amsterdam-based initiative that encourages visitors to adopt the Dutch custom of Backie – getting a ride on a fellow cyclist’s luggage rack. Think of it as the cyclist’s version of an Uber driver. The company behind the initiative provide bright yellow racks so that participating riders can be easily identified.

London is already renowned for its Boris bike’s, so could this be taken one step further and bring the Backie initiative to another bike-friendly city? The insurance implications would need careful consideration, but this could definitely be worth exploring, perhaps in partnership with a cycle equipment manufacturer or retailer. An app could even by formulated, to enable customers to  hail nearby Backie drivers, and bring  this simple business idea into the 21st century