Recycle business rip off or not ?

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Davers

Davers

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Yes, you got "ripped off", no, there is nothing you can do about it. They are a business that is going to pay the lowest they can, yet still attract sellers. You can bet though, when they sell, they search out the highest price and they can afford to sit on it until prices are higher. Another thing that plays into their pricing, there is little to no competition, as most sellers aren't going to drive hundreds of miles looking for the best price, we all pretty much are confined to our local yard.

Yea the smaller yards in metro local all take their scrap to 2 big yard's but get commercial (high ton) $'s.
 

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Davers

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Ugh, sounds like my results after saving up clean zinc for a long time only to get 5 cents a pound. I thought with market price around 1.00/lb then I'd at least get .25 but no dice. Stopped selling lead ages ago because ya can pour ingots and sell on eBay for top dollar but I've just been piling it up, probably got 600lb in the corner of the garage now. Pewter (tin) is the granddaddy of base metals, if scrap pewter is poured into bars and sold on eBay it's worth 8-12 a pound currently so very good to hoard cheap pewter items from sales/thrift stores. Not sure but probably have 120-140lb stacked now.

I expect prices to go way up on base metals by next Spring, so hold if you can afford to.

Funny Plumbata , I have a bunch of those 'Clean' pan's they offered me 1 cent a pound.
 

trdking

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Ive got pretty close to 5k pounds of clean copper. Waiting..... I just let go of over 10K in clean aluminum. I needed the space. So that means the price of aluminum is going to go up soon because I sold out. This almost always happens to me. :)
 

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Ugh, sounds like my results after saving up clean zinc for a long time only to get 5 cents a pound. I thought with market price around 1.00/lb then I'd at least get .25 but no dice. Stopped selling lead ages ago because ya can pour ingots and sell on eBay for top dollar but I've just been piling it up, probably got 600lb in the corner of the garage now. Pewter (tin) is the granddaddy of base metals, if scrap pewter is poured into bars and sold on eBay it's worth 8-12 a pound currently so very good to hoard cheap pewter items from sales/thrift stores. Not sure but probably have 120-140lb stacked now.

I expect prices to go way up on base metals by next Spring, so hold if you can afford to.

I'm slow , but read the rest of yr reply , you sound like me , I keep all my Zinc separated like , old dug canning lids , & what ever I suspect is pewter , & def now hoard all my lead . I wish I had a hand scanner still tho their prices have come down in the past years since I posted about then in 2013 -2106 . & I'm able to invest in one now maybe ? + I could use it in my silver buys & other PM's ( tho I don't plan on buying many at this time of higher prices . )

+ My memory is bad , I could dig out old receipts but thought clean cast Aluminium was paying more than cans but it's at 20 cent a lb as of Tuesday the 4th .

Ill plan on making ingots soon .
 

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Davers

Davers

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Ive got pretty close to 5k pounds of clean copper. Waiting..... I just let go of over 10K in clean aluminum. I needed the space. So that means the price of aluminum is going to go up soon because I sold out. This almost always happens to me. :)

That's big $ in those weight ranges , yea I got approx 'only' 70 ish lbs of Bare Bright , 100+ of # 1 & 200 + of all brass types mixed ..Oh & 200 + of all categories of wire .

Ill keep stacking that for now , waiting on higher prices or a time when I need it bad .

One thing I've noticed during the pandemic ??? Is Construction business is still booming here in the Atlanta Metro , but materials are getting harder to find like certain roofing Shingles , & Wood.

I may invest in a truck & haul junk as I'm on Disability & work more efficiently ie, better alone .
 

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Think of it like retail backwards.
Meaning when you buy a widget you pay a certain price. Some will sell it at a lower price than others.
So we have retail, wholesale, distribution, manufacturers

Guess where most stand-at the retail level.

Scrap works the same way.

Little Ma & Pa operation-sells to bigger yard, or if they have the volume they sell to a broker of that one metal group.
In turn that yard will sell to a smelter, which will sell to another or directly to a manufacturer.

You can phone around and get a sense on what the demand is for cans, the hard to transport, silly, wasp infested items. I could put 10-15 tons in a bin of metals-cans a ton or bit over.
Time consuming to brick them, baling was another option, them just holding them till one had enough to sell was a pain.

The lowly can-had to processed/shredded/delaminated/bricked/smelted. Just can't dump cans into the pot as it would just go up the chimney basically.

The biggest thing that I can suggest is trust-that being get paid for what you separate-and for the weight that bring in.

You have a pounds of X the small-large platform scales can go in increments of 1/2/5/10/20lbs so where do you get weighed up.

Small mixed get weighed on the inside scales. Now if it's a floor scale, electronic,, do the simple test.
One should be able to see the scale read out, so stand on each corner of the scale, then in the middle.
The 5 weights should be the same. If not a load cell isn't correct (or the company isn't) Just go to another yard.

I had an independent weight company come in 4X a year to certify my scales-they didn't make an appointment they just showed up in the middle of any business day.
Everything waited until they finished and posted up the findings for the scale.(Above each scale)
(Most yards get a certified scale-nobody rechecks that scale-unless they are ripping off the world and the authorities check the weights out/or the law requires an update.)

Yes it sucked to be half way through the weigh up-but I was the only scrap yard that did this. Why?
Because I treated everything honestly-I didn't want to loose, and the scrap belonged to the customer until they signed the form and they were paid.

I was the second biggest yard in the eastern part of the GTA, the biggest was a company that did small/med/big a feeder yard.

The biggest margins are in zinc, lead, cans, insulated wire is probably being the highest.

Earn the trust of the yard and it works both ways as they will trust your loads.

Separate the metals, ask questions on how you can get a better price.

I was an open book when it came to educating the customer. Reason being is it made me money, less separation, cleaner product. quick in/out =$$$

I went toe-to toe with the biggest yard for 10yrs in pricing. Still they could out do me by 5-10cents a pound on stuff if they wanted to apply pressure on me. I worked on 8-10cent margins during those 10yrs.
So you think you're getting ripped off when you sell a bag of cans/or any other product, think about this.

You sell a 100 lb of copper to me for $1.00 a pound. 100x$1.00=$100.00 in your pocket.
I had to separate, put it in a bin/tote, store it, transport it, sell it. Sometimes had to wait a few days to get my money even, and always paid by cheque-not cash like you got. My final take was $110.00

Now I had a mortgage, taxes, heat, wages, utilities, fuel .........They list is endless for expenses and running costs. Just the back pocket visa was tipping 15-20K a month for fuels/parts/.......

So in the scrap world it works like this "If it was easy-It would have been done-Scrap 101"

When I started out processing my own scrap, driving over the scales, fighting for my loads, I was lucky to get $10 per hr for cleaning scrap up good enough to sell. But if I put enough hrs in-I made money.

I owned the yard for 13 years my weeks were still 85-100hrs a week-I wore out-sold-retired at 48yrs old. Yes one can make it on scrap.

Honesty was the best policy

Funny little story: While sitting in the office of the former owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs he told me that he made his first money in scrap. How?

"I climbed over the Cherry St yard's back fence when I was a kid-took some scrap-went around to the front and sold it back to them" :laughing7:

Folks look down their noses at the lowly scrap truck driving around picking up any thing metal to sell. I tip my hat at that person as it's a hard, honest days living. Many customers were those types, drove from morning to dusk, had a mortgage, paid the bills, went to church on Sundays, and I would trust them with the till if I turned my back as they looked after mine in turn.

I have no secrets-nor do I tell no lies.

Great write up / assessment ; I do recall your past posts about yr yard that's one reason I posted here , BTW , I agree on the " Stigma" but talking to these guys , tho many are addicts , have mental issues / both ...but are some of the nicest people to talk to , they don't judge me , have cool stories .

Heck last Friday ,I stopped at a closed large business complex to take a pictures of a High Rise under construction , & me having OCD , & Liking to find things & I was taking my Cans in the next morning ( well some of them ) I saw cent's laying everywhere & 24 oz Beer , Tea , can's everywhere + some copper / brass , heavy steel . Sooo It was on ! lol , came across a hot but full beer & poured it out / crushed it , then a few min later a homeless guy came up 'yelling ' " you poured out my Beer " !!!!.

I said " my Bad Ill go get you another " I understood as I was an Drinker 'for a nicer word' for years ( but no dinikie for me in 18 years next month ) , he ended up giving me $15 , I tried to refuse , but he insisted A-LOT ! , so I took it drove & got his beer & Cig's + he had no ID ( Heck he was 60 + y/o ) :icon_scratch:, brought it back & talked for 3 hrs & he ended up knowing a few people that I knew , even one of my oldest friends . Yes ; he had issues & I could not live with him but I enjoyed being / talking with a person who was "Real" & not trying to please society . All in all , I'd like to take him some brew every now & again & a Joint or 2 & take spit .

This area is across from the Newer Atl Braves Ball Park & 15 miles from my home , but I can see him wanting rides & other stuff in the future so I may park a mile away walk over just to talk , man I must be lonely .

Off topic but I have told nobody who would care that story , so ill tell it here .:occasion14:
 

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Davers

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Once I was selling a load of #2 copper among other metals, about 20 pounds worth, but when I got the ticket it said I had 168 pounds of #2!! Naturally I alerted the foreman immediately, the newbie who accidentally stepped on the scale got a healthy reaming, the scrappers behind me looked at me like I was nuts and said I shoulda kept quiet, and then the guys in the office thanked me, shook my hand and gave me a 10.00 honesty/hamburger bonus. This was in Columbus Ohio at the height of the heroin/opiate crisis and a good half of the clientele were either simple addicts or thieving addicts who mysteriously found vast supplies of nothing but big HVAC condenser unit coils. Also rather mysteriously, every vacant house in the city had their condensers disappear around the same time.

That scrapyard was getting screwed every second every day, with people dumping washers they had filled with water, dryers full of broken paving bricks, loads of cans with sand filled ones peppered in, and the lowly homeless dopesick scroungers would collect up good donated canned food just to push to the yard and "sell for weight". Pretty nasty degenerated place if you ask me, scrapping ain't easy especially when you're dealing with criminals and addicts all day long.

I totally get it .
 

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Regarding the construction materials shortages (lumber particularly), China has been hoarding the crap out of everything they can line up because of the gargantuan rebuilding efforts that will be necessary all along the flood ravaged Yangtze river. They're hoarding food too because the flooding has ruined harvests so thank them for a portion of rising food prices also.
 

PetesPockets55

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Another reason aluminum prices may be down is in anticipation of hurricane season. If I recall correctly aluminum screen rooms were scrapping for about 2$/lb in 2004 before the Hurricane whammy hit Florida. So many screen rooms came down that the price may have gotten down to 25C.
 

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augoldminer

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What is it with 20mm brass.
I took two buckets full in one time and got top dollor for it.
I did notice that the scrap guy did take it right into the back room and did not put it in the brass bin with the rest of the scrap brass.
 

Jason in Enid

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What is it with 20mm brass.
I took two buckets full in one time and got top dollor for it.
I did notice that the scrap guy did take it right into the back room and did not put it in the brass bin with the rest of the scrap brass.

Because they are worth more as a shell casing (crafters, decorators, etc) than their base metal value.
 

Johnnybravo300

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Here in Gunnison we'd have to drive an hour and a half to a recycler that pays.
Our local recycle place will take your cans but they dont pay and its extra work going through all the trash for nothing.
My trash all ends up in Walmart's parking lot trash cans haha. I've never seen a point in paying for trash service when there are cans everywhere.
 

RustyGold

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Here where I live, if you dump trash into any rented bin or commercial business trash bin it’s considered “Theft of Services”. It could result in a hefty $500 fine.
 

pepperj

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Here in Gunnison we'd have to drive an hour and a half to a recycler that pays.
Our local recycle place will take your cans but they dont pay and its extra work going through all the trash for nothing.
My trash all ends up in Walmart's parking lot trash cans haha. I've never seen a point in paying for trash service when there are cans everywhere.

Great way of dumping on someone else.
I would just write plate #, make the discrete query on plate, final result is to get the return on the doorstep with the strongly worded message to follow.
 

pepperj

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Here where I live, if you dump trash into any rented bin or commercial business trash bin it’s considered “Theft of Services”. It could result in a hefty $500 fine.

There was a garbage strike by the union in Toronto many years ago. I had my roll off bins in a locked gated yard down the street and received the trash, dumping from somebody. I realized that it was a nightly occurrence and I was the recipient of the dumper.
I now had the option of staying up all night-waiting for dumper-or just figure out who they were. It took all of 20 minutes to come across a printed ad to the restaurant of the business.
So I called up the owner and gave the options:
#1-Remove all the garbage-clean the bin.
#2-If not receive the return garbage during rush hour in the middle of Restaurant floor. (middle of heat wave-ripe)
#3-By tomorrow
 

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