It's a tossup on the CD/DVD drives. I break mine down because there isn't a buyer for whole units in this area. It's usually a pretty quick thing. Four small screws and they pop right apart.

I take it that CD boards = finger cards ? You do see more with the p-4's and earlier. Usually at least one and sometimes three.

HDD's weren't listed. The HDD logic boards are easy to pop off and have scrap value.

Do you have regular employees that you have to pay ? Best to figure the cost of having them on the job as hourly rate + workman's comp + benefits +your social security contribution on their behalf.

Consider wear & tear on the vehicles. IRS allows something like .40 - .50 cents per mile as the real cost of running a car or truck ? It's probably not too far off the mark.



Additional labor & costs besides the breakdown:

Many of the towers are pretty dusty inside. Makes a mess of the shop so there's daily cleanup time to figure in.

Cost of trash bags and trips to the dump. Towers are pretty recyclable but there's a certain amount of plastic waste on the sides and face of the machine. Do you have to pay any disposal or dumpster fees ?

As you said earlier : Labor and travel expense of running to the scrapyard.

There's a fair amount of time & labor involved with shipping the boards out to a buyer if you're sending things out in 69 lb packages. You have to get solid cardboard boxes and packing materials. Shipping costs are a BIG spoiler.

Shipping things out by pallet is a lot more cost effective if you've got the volume. Still ... there's the cost of a pallet and cardboard gaylord to consider.

Every situation is different. I'm in a rural area and my average net profit after expense is about 1.10 /lb on every box that is shipped. ( That doesn't include labor.) If i paid a couple of bucks per tower i would probably be losing money.

The thing that makes it worthwhile is the occasional better than scrap option.