Price of scrap down twice in 2 days - trying to stay motivated - Page 2

...where is it that the price of gas has gone down? It sure isn't down by me.

https://gasprices.aaa.com/news/



Maybe that's outdated info in the link I posted above, i'm not arguing cause - I don't keep on top of national gas price trends, but gas hasn't gone down near me, it keeps going up.


Well... I guess it's 1 cent per lb. down from when I started scrapping. I guess it's really not that big a deal. Just means I need to make sure that truck is completely full before I take it to the scale (been trying to do that anyway) and saving the brass, aluminum and copper etc... My stripper arrived yesterday... not the kind the comes with a brass pole, but, it would be nice to have a brass pole to recycle, my wife wouldn't like if I had "ordered" the other kind of stripper...

shred has been $65-80/ton here for over a yr. The only thing I take for shred are computer cases that I strip and misc junk associated with e-waste.

Originally Posted by SKWrapper

.My stripper arrived yesterday... not the kind the comes with a brass pole, but, it would be nice to have a brass pole to recycle, my wife wouldn't like if I had "ordered" the other kind of stripper...

Let me clarify my poor attempt at humor.

I bought a wire stripper. I didn't "buy" a female "exotic dancer". My wife would NOT have liked it if I did and I might not be married to her for long after that, but the bright side is if the girl came with a brass pole, at least I could recycle that.

*crickets,... then tomatoes being thrown at Mike (me), followed by boo's*

Sorry for going off topic with bad humor.

I was able to recycle 860 lbs of metal Wednesday most of it was at one stop, so that was nice.

Cars are dropping also >> $130.00 a ton on Friday the 13th, $120 on Monday the 16th and dropped to $110.00 today with a warning could be $100.00 on Monday

Yeah. My yard pays 0.045 /lb for general shred steel. I normally don't collect and take steel, but since I am getting so much of it now, and my yard now buys computer fans and PSUs (even with the wire still attached and plugs removed) as shred steel, I am pretty much forced to now. I don't haul anywhere near the weights you guys talk about since I am a low-income (in terms of material) person, so I don't accumulate as much as you all. I just live in an area that is more remote than what I would like for scrapping. When I lived in Virginia, I lived in a neighborhood with over 1200 homes in it, (by just walking and using a hand truck as my transporter) I could cover the whole neighborhood in about three hours and get an average value each time of about $100. This neighborhood also has an annual yard sale in which nearly every house participated in. I would wait until the various trash days, and since I was the only scrapper in this neighborhood that I knew of, I would go around and sift through their unsold items left out in the rubbish piles. It was quite nice. Usually scored a couple printers (for scrap steel), a few CRTs, some misc. smalls and other electronics, and some general scrap metal. Sometimes I'd find some wire pieces, and some aluminum chunks. A couple times I found whole laptops and a couple desktops. Those times were what made me keep going out and doing it again.
Sorry for the rant there, but sometimes I just get to talking when I start to remember what my high times were like. Anyway, I hope my yard pays a little more for stainless steel over general shred. I do sometimes come across some stainless and I will collect it too and sort it if it pays more. If not, I'm just going to leave it because of its weight to value ratio.
Anyway, thanks for reading my rant! Hope everyone has a great day!

Originally Posted by Stargate1

Yeah. My yard pays 0.045 /lb for general shred steel. I normally don't collect and take steel, but since I am getting so much of it now, and my yard now buys computer fans and PSUs (even with the wire still attached and plugs removed) as shred steel, I am pretty much forced to now. I don't haul anywhere near the weights you guys talk about since I am a low-income (in terms of material) person, so I don't accumulate as much as you all. I just live in an area that is more remote than what I would like for scrapping. When I lived in Virginia, I lived in a neighborhood with over 1200 homes in it, (by just walking and using a hand truck as my transporter) I could cover the whole neighborhood in about three hours and get an average value each time of about $100. This neighborhood also has an annual yard sale in which nearly every house participated in. I would wait until the various trash days, and since I was the only scrapper in this neighborhood that I knew of, I would go around and sift through their unsold items left out in the rubbish piles. It was quite nice. Usually scored a couple printers (for scrap steel), a few CRTs, some misc. smalls and other electronics, and some general scrap metal. Sometimes I'd find some wire pieces, and some aluminum chunks. A couple times I found whole laptops and a couple desktops. Those times were what made me keep going out and doing it again.
Sorry for the rant there, but sometimes I just get to talking when I start to remember what my high times were like. Anyway, I hope my yard pays a little more for stainless steel over general shred. I do sometimes come across some stainless and I will collect it too and sort it if it pays more. If not, I'm just going to leave it because of its weight to value ratio.
Anyway, thanks for reading my rant! Hope everyone has a great day!

Do yourself a favor and use a cut-off wheel and cut the wire pigtails off the power supplies. Takes literally 4 seconds, toss them in a drum and sell as wire. I give the yards nothing extra in my shred because they don't for us in return. Stainless is usually anything not magnetic. Low grade stainless like the cheap grill lids are junky stainless and go to shred, but the side plates can be cast aluminum, so just use a magnet and check it. E-scrap is really where its at in terms of money, but you have to have the volume. If you really want to get serious about it, call all the shops within a 40-50mile radius of your home and talk to them. If they want you to pay for scrap, try always to make atleast double your investment if possible. Buy for $1, sell for $2. I use that rule when I have to pay for things.

Originally Posted by SKWrapper

...where is it that the price of gas has gone down? It sure isn't down by me.

https://gasprices.aaa.com/news/

Maybe that's outdated info in the link I posted above, i'm not arguing cause - I don't keep on top of national gas price trends, but gas hasn't gone down near me, it keeps going up.


Well... I guess it's 1 cent per lb. down from when I started scrapping. I guess it's really not that big a deal. Just means I need to make sure that truck is completely full before I take it to the scale (been trying to do that anyway) and saving the brass, aluminum and copper etc... My stripper arrived yesterday... not the kind the comes with a brass pole, but, it would be nice to have a brass pole to recycle, my wife wouldn't like if I had "ordered" the other kind of stripper...

I wonder if supply and demand are driving the markets.

The price of gas at our station has been stable at 2.999 / gal for about three weeks now. It usually goes up sometime in May or June just before the summer driving season starts and then levels off in July. It should start to drop sometime after Labor Day. That's the traditional " end of the summer tourist season " for us.

The lobster fishing industry is big here. The lobsters were late to move inshore this year so prices stayed up. They started to filter into the Eastern Bay about a week and a half ago. Lobster prices started to drop as soon as the supply increased and the fishermen groaned. Fishermen are * Ahem* in the same boat as the scrappers.

It's probably the same with scrap metal prices ? There's more scrapping activity in the summer so there's more on the market ? That would drive prices down ?

Maybe China's National Sword policy has influenced the market by reducing demand ?

BTW: Congrats on the new stripper. Just don't tell the wife because you'll never hear the end of it ! They don't like it when you spend money on that kind of thing. Just hide it out in the shop. She won't figure it out for a couple of years. When she finally catches on .... just say to her it's been out there for ages hon.... where have you been ????

The dollar is too strong, interest rates are forecasted to “hike”, and tariffs are causing a slow down in global demand for all
etals.

Thanks Kalvin and Aaron p for the replies. I have been doing e-scrap for about 12 years now, so I am pretty experienced in that field. I've been doing non-ferrous metals for almost as long. Now, I am getting into actually collecting steel to cover fuel expenses, I needed a little more info on the best way to gather it. I always cut the wire off the computer PSUs and the plugs off the other end. I also noticed that e-waste prices went down a little. Motherboards seem to have been impacted the most, and I think the price of gold going down is to blame. Hopefully it'll go back up and we can start making good money again. I use several online auction sites and attend in-person auctions to get e-waste, but the area I live in isn't as active with those types of auctions as the area in Virginia in which I lived. Oh well. Can't win them all I guess.

Heard a 20/ton drop for steel prices in august

it's down to 110 a ton now... and I had a 980lb load of scrap today + some batteries and mixed low grade wire. I won't sell my bright stripped solid core and stranded bare copper wire to that yard. I have to wait till the weekend to take it elsewhere, cause everywhere else pays more for copper.

All that weight for 110/ton. Pretty disappointing.

85/ton here in LV. Not even a regular ton lol, but a British gross ton

$35/ton here. Only thing steel is e-waste by-product or a/c unit shells.

Originally Posted by aaron p

$35/ton here. Only thing steel is e-waste by-product or a/c unit shells.

$35 a ton, I don't know how anyone could not just break even - on scrap anyway - unless it's that guy that rides a bike and carries fridges... and even then the calories it takes and the food required for just the calories... still would be close to breaking even or a loss on fuel.

I've been fortunate that 1. It went down but to 110 a ton by me and I guess that's not too bad and 2. I have increased my IT consulting hours and my compensation at my regular carrier has been increased so I can't complain and 3. Hardly anyone scraps in the area where I work so after work or during lunch I typically get a full load anytime I bother to look. My poor truck is begging for mercy as I type.

All it means for me, the lowered prices, is that I will invest and focus less on weight and more on non-ferrous. By "invest" I mean fix my heater core and back window on my truck and get a headache rack, that and spend more time with my wife and son now that things have calmed down a bit.