Hey all…..
I have a friend that owns a scrap yard….We got to talking today about how he hired a guy (and paid him well) to seek out scrap (aluminum, steel, copper..etc) but the guy got him only a few sites.
Sounded to me like he was offering a job.
Never been around the construction site but work in a similar industry.
anyone know what to expect or if I should try and pursue this?
Replies
Some economics, I'd not quit your present job uless yu really know the market and the contacts:
Around here (Seattle area) you can still get about all the scrap steel you want, but you need to commit to a pickup schedule. Most of it gets picked up by retired guys - e.g one guy I know picks up a few score of driveshafts from a driveshaft rebuilder every week, he tells me it only pays for his gas, but he goes past the place to other spots so he nets a few (like $15.00) bucks a week visiting a number of places.
Last year offered about 2 tons of scrap steel to anybody to come pick it up (too busy to load it and go to the yard at the time) - the guy above cherry picked all the engine blocks and the other guy who came offered to take it for $50 (me pay him, fat chance!) Finally got another load in the truck, get about $40 a ton now delivered and you unload at the scrap yard.
Most are now wise to the big runup in copper and aluminum prices, 'semi-precious' 'scrap' is now considered a commodity that has value, you are not likely to find many places to give you any appreciable quantity, as it now pays to accumulate it to make a recycle trip worthwhile.
One neighbor has all his old foggy alum frame windows sitting in my back yard, pretty soon I'll recycle them as he has not done it, the guys who replaced his windows 2 years ago wanted $80 to haul them off, probably only $30 or $40 worth of Al on them and will take 4 or 5 hours to strip, way less return than my day job.
Probably why 'the guy' of your original post only got him a few spots.
Scrap is one of the things on my 'to do' list. All the ductwork out of a 1600sq ft ranch, plus furnace (saved the fan for a friend), plus AC unit, couple stoves, cast iron tub, etc. jt8
'Grandpa used to say "know your role and shut your hole." ' --Stilletto
around here thet steal the scrap for the yards. leave some copper out, its gone in minutes.
The project house is located in small-town Mommyvan country. I had a pile of copper pipe sitting on the front porch for a couple months and no one bothered it. Then for about a month had a larger pile behind the house. No one bothered that either.
Meanwhile in the town I LIVE in, they steal it out of vacant houses without bothering to turn the water off. I could probably go to Lowes and pay $2 for a can of copper spray paint and get rid of anything by simply painting it copper colored ;)
jt8
'Grandpa used to say "know your role and shut your hole." ' --Stilletto
We regularly have people killed trying to steal live electrical wires. Vacant houses have the aluminum siding stolen, sometimes even occupied ones too. Copper pipes are stolen from houses and apartments. They are even stealing old cars for scrap. Someone stole a handicaped mans aluminum ramp, leaving him stuck in his house. A large part of a churches copper roofing was stolen one night.
I put scrap steel out by the trash and it's always gone in a few hours or less.
I just saw on the local news where a vacant house here in Minneapolis blew up today. Someone broke in and stole the copper gas lines in the basement.
My house sat vacant for 7 years before I got it - the only vandalism, thanks to vigilant neighbors, was the copper was stolen from the basement - including the oil supply lines. It took almost a year to get rid of the oil odor...
One man's "paid him well" is another man's starvation wages.
I've known a few junkers and they did well by themselves, but it is a whole different culture from regulkaar jobs and regular economy.
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What is "paid well"?
Anyways, steel around here was paying $60 a ton last time I checked. That's a lot of metal- especially if it isn't in big, heavy chunks. Plenty of folks cruise the streets in their beat up trucks on garbage day around here. I can put anything out and it is gone shortly.
I don't know how the time and effort to recover the steel coupled with what the material is worth pays for their time and gas.
Some guys cruise construction sites. One job I saw two guys cruise by every day. No metal went into that dumpster. Other sites won't let non-subs on site due to insurance issues.
Copper and aluminum are too valuable to make it to the dumpster in the first place. It has always been rare to find that stuff around here in the trash.
Seems like the scrap yard owners do pretty well around here. They have the space to hold until the time is right to sell.
I have done ok cashing in the little bit of copper I get from work, but I have to make sure I separate it properly to get the most money. Scrap yard will screw me on the price for one piece of copper with solder on it in a whole big pile- gotta watch out. Copper electric wire is also more valuable than pipe- as long as it is shiny. Copper sheet is the least valuable around here, but one piece of it in a pile of pipe will get me less money.
Same goes for one nail in a pile of aluminum siding. They check around here.
Anyways, if you are the middle man turning in scrap, make sure you know exactly how you will be paid and how the different types of scrap pay out.
In Toronto there are roving scrappers who make their (meagre) living primarily on barbeques. A couple of those alone at $0.50/# for the aluminum will pay for the gas. Leave stuff out at the curb and it tends to be gone in a week or two.
A couple ballsy guys with a pick-up rolled up to our bin at work one day and started loading their truck with our scrap. Fortunately, our shipper/receiver is a man-mountain who scares the pants off people from a distance, so they were quick to re-load our bin and take off.
Steel scrap yards were paying $60/ton back when steel was selling industrially for $0.30 to $0.40/#. That was stable for years. Steel hit $0.90/# about a year ago and is now in the $0.60-$0.70/# range. When it hit $0.90/#, the local steel mills hit a peak of $0.14/# paid for decent steel scrap delivered to their gate- that's a heck of a lot more than $60/ton! A lot of money was made during that time period by scrap dealers. Lots of people didn't bother to ask what they were paying, and kept taking $60/ton.
Despite the increase in metals prices, a lot of businesses are not wise to the value of their scrap. That's a good opportunity if you're a dealer with an existing yard, but doubtful that too much of that gets paid on to the guys hauling for them.
The link below shows what the mills pay for scrap ($250 ton). East coast scrapyards have paid over $90/ton, but west coast yards (S. Diego to Seattle) have hardly ever gone over $50. Go figure.
Environmental regulations have eliminated 9 of 10 scrap yards, only 2 good big ones left (rail/sea access) in Seattle Tacoma area, used to be about 15 and some competition for prices. Now you pretty much take what they offer, it's $25 worth of gas to go to Tacoma vs. Seattle.
http://www.steelonthenet.com/commodity_prices.html
There's a local guy here, about 42 years old, no car, moves around on a bicycle. Makes his "living" collecting pop and beer cans and bottles. Makes about $35 to $50 a day.
Has done it for years. Has a very efficient route; knows where the accumulations of dicards are and knows where to cash them in (In Oregon, 5 cent deposit....a bottle bill thing).
Some in the community admire him because he helps pick up litter and works fairly hard at it.....daily.
But his family members despise him: He has 5 kids and an Ex that he abandoned and has never paid one pop bottle's deposit worth of child support.
Do they pay scrap on cast iron tubs?
jt8
'Grandpa used to say "know your role and shut your hole." ' --Stilletto
Yep, but probably not top dollar. If it's in reasonably good shape and you're near a major city, though, you'd probably find a used materials dealer who'll give you more than scrap price for it. There are people who will recondition the surfaces on these and sell them again, and there's definitely a market for old clawfoot tubs.
It is just a 30yo cast iron tub. In good shape (drain is on the wrong end for me to reuse it), but nothing fancy about it. I called the Habitat folks and offered it to them (for free, just pick it up) for their 're-store' store, but never heard back.
Also have a couple old stoves. One of which might work, but I've already disconnected the power (so can't verify it works), so off to the scrap yard it goes.jt8
'Grandpa used to say "know your role and shut your hole." ' --Stilletto
Last time I talked to a couple of scrappers picking steel was last summer, and all they were getting was $60 a ton- and that was the highest local price according to them. I never checked into it- way too much effort for me- not a big enough truck to make it worthwhile.
$60 a ton sounds like heaven<G>
After seeing this thread yesterday,
went out last night and loaded 1268 pounds of scrap into the dump truck (Datsun body, couple old dryers, etc.), drove it to work today as the scrap yard is just 1/2 mile north of office/lab.
Got $28 and change today ($45 a ton), up from $40 a ton a month ago.
DW's happy as more is gone out of back yard, she tells me I have only 20 more years at the most to get rid of it all.
DW's happy as more is gone out of back yard, she tells me I have only 20 more years at the most to get rid of it all.
Better get busy :)
Your insinuation is that you want to know about recycling opportunities at the construction site.
On an average house (new construction) the debris removal bill is a minimum of about $1000. I'm sure any builder would welcome anyone who wanted to remove scrap, as long as a mess was not created.
One problem is that you won't find that much recyclable metal at a construction site. Maybe find a vinyl siding company or 3 to follow around and pick up the aluminum coil scraps but that would be about it. The vinyl off cuts are recyclable, but there is no money in it. Most electrical crews have a member who collects copper.
Also, it is difficult (at best) to get subcontractors to separate waste materials. I'm just happy if they clean up after themselves.
Off on a tangent now....
Recycling is a thing that HAS to happen. Not long ago, in the area that I live, there was a big stink because it was found that one of the local recycling companies was picking up curb side plastic & glass and dumping it at a landfill. Obviously they were getting paid to pick-up but not to drop off. This went on for months - maybe even more that a year before it was exposed. When exposed, the reason given was that the recycle dump was full.
So the problem with recycling is the economics of it...