Junk Appliances can be a treasure trove of recyclable materials.
Recoverable materials include: steel, aluminum, copper, plastics, rubber, glass, and freon.
Lets start with your common washer and dryer set.
The wiring contains recyclable copper see copper recycling
The main case is made of steel see steel recycling
Also they are rich in recyclable plastics see plastic recycling
Next lets talk about refrigerators. There are literally millions of junk refrigerators in this country. The internal coils on these are rich with copper and aluminum not to mention the steel, plastic, and sometimes stainless steel, that make up the shell.
The downside or sometimes upside to recycling refrigerators is disposing of the freon. Freon is the refrigerant gas that runs through the coils and compressor in a fridge.
Most municipalities require by law that refrigerant gases be disposed of by a licensed professional and under no circumstances deliberately released into the air.
The upside to this is that there is actually a market for recycled refrigerant.
With the proper training and equipment refrigerator recycling can prove very profitable.
Some poeple and municipal dumps will actually pay you to pickup and properly dispose of junk refrigerators and appliances.
However this is one prospect best left to somone with a strong back and due to biological debree that may be present (the science experiment in the fridge) it's not for the squemish.