Scrapping Spots

I'm sure this has been talk about but neighbors are a great source. My neighbor saves his family's cans for me. While I was out in the garage tonight he brought over a 33 gl trashcan full and he was looking in my garage and says "you scrap more than can's?" Well he just replaced a bunch of windows and a screen door says your welcome to them, so I went over to get them and started talking. He has a lot of screen windows and a few electric motors he wants to get rid of. So tomorrow I will retrieve them from his basement. I guess I need to ask more of my neighbors.

This spot I found to be different. I recently picked up a daily route, just so happens to be one of those 18 wheeler trailer donation places. Turns out anything left outside of the trailer over night, cannot be taken as a donation, and is regarded as trash. Other trailers could be different, so ask before you take anything.
I've been given permission to take anything I want that sits outside of the trailer. (It saves them money for when they have to pay a trash removal company to pick it up every Monday).

I realize this falls under that "donation box" category from a few weeks back, but at the same time, if it's going to the dump anyways, that shouldn't matter what I do with it.

And a side note- Something to think about if you happen to get one of these gigs....They were intended to be donations, that means most of the discarded "junk" has a good chance of working, if you're into reselling, or re-using.

Hmmmmm...Interesting. Let us know what kind of stuff you get from that. It could be interesting.

I have already gotten TV's, CRT's, Electric Grills, Clothes, Toys, Books, DVD/CD's, jewelry, tools, scrap metals. It's located somewhat close to a richer neighborhood, and I usually fill up truck bed every other night.

I get a lot of leads off craigslist. I also post 10 - 15 responses per day on blogs with my contact info. Another method I used is http//search.twitter.com Run a search like Scrap Metal, scrap,recycling (and your city). It's instant and up to the second. I've gotten 3 leads in the last 2 days from scrappers in Florida off twitter.

Just thought of another one. car stereo installers. The stereo I just took apart last night looked like it had some high grade computer board in it. Not to mention any other lasers or small motors that may be sellable? Anyone have experience with this?

I was wondering the same thing on stereo equipment and amps. Anyone know if they have gold in it?

Typically, the only gold in electronics is used for solderless connect such as ram chips and connectors, pci cards/slots, flex cables, etc. Hopefully this is some help.

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Try real estate agencies, Properties that go up for sale often need clean up services. Never know what you will get .It speaks for itself but please act professional when approaching other businesses and have solid contact info. Do not have some stupid ringtone on your phone or some goofy voicemail message.

I have pretty good sucess with local businesses. I usually offer to purchase it at right around 25-35 dollars a trailer full. I currently pick up from the local Habitat for Humanity resale store, lots of office buildings (mainly computer and office equip), schools, computer repair shops, and similar type places. I generally dont look for scrap metal per se but rather for computers and electronics. I look for office buildings, call centers, and similar places with larger amount of computers. I carry business cards and recyle agreements and scales with me at all times.

Also dont overlook scrap yards themselves. I buy LOTS of circuit boards from scrap yards at 1 to 2 dollars per pound and turn around and resell for over 4 dollars per pound. One yard alone gets me 500-1000 pounds per month. The best yards for these kind of deals are the smaller yards. If your yard is currently not handling circuit boards its because the are unaware of the value. Tell them to purchase at .50 per pound and you will buy for 1.00 per pound. SOme of the yards around here will also let you buy anything in the tin pile for .25 per pound as well so when we go we cherry pick that for computers as well.

cell phone stores are a great place to go to as well. Scrap cell phones go for close to 6 dollars a pound. We purchase from St vincent de paul, salvation army and similar stores on a monthly basis for 1.00 per pound and resell for 6 dollars a pound. Last pick up from salvation army was 100 pounds. Most of these phones are to old or beat up for resale and they were just putting in the scrap pile. We also offer schools free cell phone collection boxes and they call us when they are full and we pay a dollar a pound as well.

Also Contact your local scrap yard. I often get calls from customers that have small quantitites and do not have the means to bring the material in. I gather their information and pass it along to a trusted scrapper. Its a win win since I still get the business and the material plus the scrapper makes a couple bucks. Works great!

Thanks, directrecycle, for that valuable information. Where do you cell the circuit boards and scrap cell phones? I mean what type of place as I doubt that we live near one another. Thanks for the help.

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Originally Posted by directrecycle

I have pretty good sucess with local businesses. I usually offer to purchase it at right around 25-35 dollars a trailer full. I currently pick up from the local Habitat for Humanity resale store, lots of office buildings (mainly computer and office equip), schools, computer repair shops, and similar type places. I generally dont look for scrap metal per se but rather for computers and electronics. I look for office buildings, call centers, and similar places with larger amount of computers. I carry business cards and recyle agreements and scales with me at all times.

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I never tried it, but I didn't think that Habitat for Humanity would give things away. Do you pick up from them for FREE, or do you pay them, like your do local businesses?

In regards to your recycle agreements, are you referring to an authorization form, or more of a contract, to where you get all their business? I personally haven't done contracts as of yet, because I know most people do not like being tied into them.

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Originally Posted by directrecycle

cell phone stores are a great place to go to as well. Scrap cell phones go for close to 6 dollars a pound. We purchase from St vincent de paul, salvation army and similar stores on a monthly basis for 1.00 per pound and resell for 6 dollars a pound. Last pick up from salvation army was 100 pounds. Most of these phones are to old or beat up for resale and they were just putting in the scrap pile. We also offer schools free cell phone collection boxes and they call us when they are full and we pay a dollar a pound as well.

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Don't forget about any type of electronic repair store. They also get any, any type of electronics that you can think of. Granted they might know about e-recycling, but I have customers that will contact me, just because they don't have the time or to lazy to mess with it themselves.

Regarding your school stuff, that is not a bad idea. Schools love anything at all to do with recycling. I am going to get in touch with the school boards around here.

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Originally Posted by Scrapette

Thanks, directrecycle, for that valuable information. Where do you cell the circuit boards and scrap cell phones? I mean what type of place as I doubt that we live near one another. Thanks for the help.

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Scrappette:

There is a few members on here, such as easyrecycle that buys them, and a few others. Also, there is a website called boardsort.com that buys them as well.

Spoke to my dad about circuit boards. Next thing, he's lined me up to take all the scrap circuit boards from the local plumb centre which has a lot of traffic. Gas men are always throwing the boards from heating systems away when in legality they shouldn't. He said they said I could put a collection bin for plumbers to throw away their boards. Only 2 things I would have to do was to empty them regularly and to supply my own dumpster. This would bring in a lot of low grade boards but I don't have the space to store that much stuff. Maybe someone else here would.