Got a call from IT repair guy closing shop!!!

I have lost a lot of regular pick ups do to dumb reasons. Companies don't like getting cash from small recyclers. They like giving it for FREE to large recyclers!!! I was getting 40-60 cellphones a month at $2/lb from a resell tech company, now they give them away for free to the needy who already get free phones from the gov't. Can't figure it out. Anyways, I am on the verge of ending my LLC and moving from my 10x25 and 15x20 storage units to a single 10x10 unit.

Then Wednesday I get a call no name on caller ID or didn't leave message. I call back and it's an IT guy I bought from a year ago. His business is struggling and is closing shop. I stopped in on Friday and picked up 80 towers, misc plastic and 20 Power supplies. Saturday, I returned with more cash after working all night processing (also partially my rental unit money, due Tuesday, so dumb). He then gave me 120 laptops, 3 boxes of laptop scrap, a LCD monitor, 2 CRT monitors and a broken microwave. I paid a little under a $100 for everything, though he wants a little more maybe 20. No problem. When I pay that, then he has CPU's and RAM to sell next. What a break!!!

I am keeping the 10x25 unit for another month, but have to leave the other unit because of lack of funds and supply of Ewaste and down grade to a 10x10 until something improves.

I does look a little grim. The trend has been from larger devices (towers) to smaller (laptops) to even smaller throw away devices like tablets & I- phones.

Been watching CL for the last couple of mos. The market for refurbished towers & laptops isn't good. There's not much call for them anymore. Every week or two there will be a listing from someone that's given up on repair and is selling out.

If you're doing e-waste it's probably better to downsize. The micro devices that will be coming in won't take up as much space.

To put it another way: E-waste is bought & sold by the pound. Weigh up what you get from a tower and compare that to what you get from a tablet. Hummm ........

You all that are heavy into e-waste have seen this coming, devices are becoming cheaper both in actual cost to the consumer and how they're made. Just my opinion, but I think the glory days of e-waste may be fading into the rear view mirror..

I can't find the post from a few years ago on here about Ewaste and its dismissal ending. But soon technology will push a lot of us Ewaste scrapers out. You have to adapt your recycling or close your doors. Soon it might be just electronic devices that you wear that will be passed on down to scrapers.

How do you recycle a broken fit bit, a smart watch, or tablet and still make money? Today's homes are being geeked out with super tech and so are cars. There will always be Ewaste to have, it will just be difficult to find if your not thinking outside of the box.

Ewaste just won't be profitable since it will contain little actual metal and the $ lb/s per device will be minimal. Look at newer cars, they all have multiple computers inside but how profitable is it to strip them out and recycle them? Companies use cheaper material to save money since its all a race to the bottom. Even now the prized ewaste is stuff from the 80's and 90's plus old telecom.

More than resale is key. Larger companies won't abandon desktops for iPads. Schools will still have some systems, as will hospitals, municipalities, and businesses. They'll need parts, and they'll send systems out. As for car computers, if they're failure-prone, there will be a market for them.

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I offer local repairs on computers. Business on the service side is down a little, but the reason is simple: money. The economy isn't doing very well out here, meaning that many people have less disposable income. A $50-75 virus removal that would be a no brainer in the past looks harder to do now. I'm seeing a stronger demand for laptops, though. A lot of the people who held out with XP are moving ship to Windows 7. I think a lot of people held on as long as they could to their old systems. As they move up, the businesses that sell refurbished products are doing better than the ones that are service only. Give the people time, though- they'll need service at some point.

One of the keys to successful business is low costs. A lot of the repair companies out here run massive overheads, and that's a killer. That nicer building that costs an extra $1000 per month needs to land you an extra 10-20 virus removals per month to break even, much less justify the added expense.

I don't know specifically what the future holds but I think I will be getting into tablets and cell phones soon, I've been burned recently on desktops...parts still sell but I think it's time we acknowledge that yes the scrap market is down, yes it is becoming MUCH more technical which is weaning out the garage e-scrappers...and that is unfortunate but thats how it is.

Fortunately I have the skill set to replace charging ports, digitizers, amoleds, motherboards, buttons, glass...do hardware resets on bricked i phones (attempted jailbreak failures)...I repair laptops from our scrap pile that quite frankly would have been passed over by anyone else. All this said, I do not do repairs for things I didn't refurbish myself mostly because ebay and the rest of the scrap side takes up too much of my time. It's been stressful on a level that's hard to describe lately.

Originally Posted by unknownk

A small repair shop closing in a large city is NOT a sign of improvement. Instead of getting things fixed people just toss them in the trash or dump them at bestbuy. I noticed quite a few people around here that used to do laptop repairs have given up over the last few years since they are cheap enough people just buy a new one when they break or get slow. I would think it would be much easier to get ewaste in bulk from a busy refurbishing guy who gets all kinds of gear dumped on him then having to chase stray machines in the trash.

Any old complete Thinkpads in that 100 laptop bundle?

Are thinkpads rare? I've got one I just sat off to the side because it was IBM, haven't really done much more than try and boot it up

there will always be ewaste...and more of it. Some of the things you guys mentioned (smartwatches etc), you would not break down (time vs $$ does not work)....you will end up sending it in whole and take a lower price per pound on that stuff. ALL of that is still made with precious metals to some degree....they will just grind them up and separate out the metals using acid like that do now. Tablets and other things like that still have plenty of precious metals in them...maybe not like the old stuff, but there just is more to be recycled and you shouldn't have to break it down soon enough...stack it up and send it off.

YES, the heyday is probably behind us, BUT there are millions of pounds of stuff still out there. They will find a way to recycle stuff, even the newer stuff. You also need to make sure you adapt to the next wave anyways. Paper and plastics are plentiful if you have a place you can send it in quantity....an alot of it pays better than metal these days.

Point is, recycling is just that, a constantly changing business...you have to adapt and keep more than one avenue in place. One thing dries up or go down in value...something else will replace it.

great thread sorryI didn't read it before I sorta steeped on it. lets go to the members room and see if we can find a way to get ahead of this trend.

Personally I am not all in on "EWASTE"......I do it because it is good money but I don't really see a huge future in it..........For this reason I have stayed small, flown under the radar, and made my money.......I have not expanded out of a large storage locker, I have not invested in any fancy tools or equipment to move ewaste.....ETC....ETC.....ETC......I think I may have stated this before but if I wanted to quit tomorrow it would just cost me a little money to clean out storage and with all the scrappers around could probably give it away easily..........I will stay in until it becomes not profitable then I will hopefully have made enough to at least live comfortably until something else comes along or I give up completely..........As usual KUDOS to the big timers like "Ewasted" that provide us a place to sell our goods but that level of biz/stress is not for me......I have thought it over time and time again I just don't want to do it........Good luck to all and I don't think ewaste is going away anytime soon it may just get to a point where it is not profitable to handle

toshiba and ibm both made pentium pro laptops...well...comact desktops? They used the black fiber P Pro not the ceramic gold cap.

I believe IBM also had a Cyrix-based laptop, but I can't say for certain.

Other than that, is your run of the mill Pentium III/IV ThinkPad rare? Nope.