I'm at the recycling yard today, and I see truck after truck (OK- there were 3 of them) with dryers, fans and other appliances going to the tin / mixed metal area. Near the pile I also see large commercial fans that still have the motors in them.

My question is- at some point are all the metals separated out from each other?



i was thinking that there are hundreds of pounds of yummy copper going into the misc. pile everyday.
I wondered if it would be worthwhile to off to rent a small spot in the yard so i can cull out things with motors, extract the motors and copper wiring and then sell it to the yard for say... half price from what they're paying now.
Basically, I'd supply the labor and we'd split whatever I pulled out- electric motors and copper wiring mostly.