And it gets worse... - Page 2

Maybe it's not so bad if the scrap yard is right on your way to work.

The nearest yard to me is a fifty mile run. It's about 1/2 a day's work to make the trip up and back. My last trip to the yard left a bad taste in my mouth. Pitiful little return for all the time invested.



Ewaste has been a little slow so i thought i would take another run at non-ferrous this year. The copper and ali kinda go together ya know ? I've got no problem storing the copper for awhile but the aluminum is starting to pile up in the shop. It's just sitting there looking at me. Meh ... unfinished business. That's not good for your self confidence. Better to get it done, take your lumps, and move on to the next task.

I tried to give it away to one of the other local scrappers last week. He didn't want it ! He had his own story to tell about hauling aluminum to the yard.

Don't really have the heart to throw it on the dump just yet but i'm getting there.

Originally Posted by SKWrapper

I am not even going to think about picking anything up from anyone right now even if a "regular" contacts me...

Those words I am now eating taste like the copper pipe I have to pickup tomorrow night from a "regular".

Of two yards in my area, one recently posted a sign "closed until further notice". They are based in a bigger city +/- 50 miles away. Sign of the (lower price) times.

Turns out it's just one yard that's that low - $60/ton at Denver Scrap Metal Recycling. $40/ton Atlas Metal and Iron of Aurora.

I know because I got contacted by a bunch more "regulars" - and they all had copper but one had a bunch of ferrous with it, and it worked out.

big stack of dirty 6063

What is this...?

It's a sex thing Rog.

Check out htms://erisblogs/discordia/alt./lifestyles/6063 on the dark web.

oops !

Ok, thanks. My non-ferrous guy would just call it "aluminum breakage" and its been a nickel a pound for about forever. Good extruded alum is down to 33 cents a pound at his place (sad), but then again maybe I don't feel as bad throwing in some my heat sinks that I can't get the dam little steel wire clip out of them. Only a 6x drop in price for them now instead of 10x drop when extruded was over 50 cents.

Hills, you be careful with the that "dark side" stuff. It will mess you up in the end...

Ok, thanks. My non-ferrous guy would just call it "aluminum breakage" and its been a nickel a pound for about forever. Good extruded alum is down to 33 cents a pound at his place (sad), but then again maybe I don't feel as bad throwing in some my heat sinks that I can't get the dam little steel wire clip out of them. Only a 6x drop in price for them now instead of 10x drop when extruded was over 50 cents.

Hills, you be careful with the that "dark side" stuff. It will mess you up in the end...

Originally Posted by DakotaRog

Ok, thanks. My non-ferrous guy would just call it "aluminum breakage" and its been a nickel a pound for about forever. Good extruded alum is down to 33 cents a pound at his place (sad), but then again maybe I don't feel as bad throwing in some my heat sinks that I can't get the dam little steel wire clip out of them. Only a 6x drop in price for them now instead of 10x drop when extruded was over 50 cents.

Hills, you be careful with the that "dark side" stuff. It will mess you up in the end...

Aww man ... but it's so much more fun over on the darkside.

On a more serious note though:

Somebody attacked a couple of the Saudi oil refineries last Saturday ?

We will have to wait and see how that plays out. Our gasoline supplier is of the opinion that they will use " any excuse " to raise the price of fuel.

Higher energy prices tend to drive scrap metal prices higher.

This could turn out to be a blessing in disguise for us. It might be wise to hoard for awhile in the hopes that we get a price bump sometime next winter.

My first post here, but I have made my living from scrap for most of the last 45 years.

Aluminum scrap went in the tank in 2008, has never recovered, and I see no reason for aluminum scrap being as high as it is today, which is down considerably from a year ago. Around here cast scrap is in the mid-30s per pound. I expect low to mid-20s before the end of the year. Just saying from 45 years of experience in the aluminum scrap market.

At one time I was cleaning and selling 100 tons of cast aluminum scrap per year. Now I am only doing about 3 tons. Concurrently I was selling 30 tons of #2 scrap per month. Now only turning about 1 ton per month.

At one time I was turning 3 tons of appliances per day, but got out of that in 1986 when EPA changed the rules. Made a lot of money with appliances since I was selling them for $55 per ton back in the 70s and 80s which was after I high-graded them. Sold about 10 tons of appliance high-grade every year at the same time.

Since 2008 scrap has been a sideline since around here it has been impossible to compete against the big guys. That is changing. The low prices are forcing the big guys around here to drop prices they are paying. I expect within a year I would be able to compete against them again, although I seriously doubt that I want to do that. Basically, I don't look for scrap - I just get scrap in the process of buying what I need, and, of course, got to do something with the scrap I get.

I moved my shop 3 years ago, so instead of the big guys being 10-20 miles from me, they are now 180 miles. BUT, I have dealt with them so long, I get paid the same price for my iron here as they were paying me before I moved AND they haul it for me! Last month I got paid $135 per ton for 3 tons THEY picked up and hauled 180 miles. Local scrap yards are paying $20 per ton for the same scrap and I have to haul it to them. Guess what I do. I have had drop boxes for my iron for the last 35 years.

I have had a guy haul my aluminum scrap now for the last 25 years. Before I moved he would charge me 5 cents per pound to haul it 10 miles and most of the time there was around 2 tons in every load. May sound expensive to do it that way, but saved me hours every load giving me time to birddog more scrap. Now I pile aluminum up for a year (about 3 tons), he brings me a load of scrap that I want that he has accumulated during the last year, I get paid the difference, and he hauls the aluminum 180 miles back to the big boys. I figure that I am getting double what I would get if I just sold it locally.

Anyhow, everything I see points to a stock market dump in the next 6 weeks on the order of 2008. I am talking about a 40% stock market crash by the last Friday of October. Can we say 1800 for the S&P? Or 16000 for the DOW? Definitely sounds ridiculous today. Time will tell.

In 2008, #2 iron here dropped from $300 per ton in April/May to $17 per ton on Election Day in November and stayed below $25 for months. We could easily see something similar this year. In 2009, I made a killing in scrap because no one could pay what I could pay. By 2010, prices started recovering and competition came back. Things were so bad that some wrecking yards in the area were PAYING the shredder take their scrap cars and had to haul them to the shredder to boot. I remember one yard that crushed 3 semiloads of cars and got a check for $180 TOTAL. He had a 1-acre yard and could not afford to store them until the price rose.

Anyhow, this is my SHORT first post.

Okay ... well ... welcome to the forum mmerlin!

It is a lot to take in all at once. With 45 years in the biz ...your sense of how aluminum will move is probably spot on. The success of your business hinged on your ability to make good business decisions. Good calls yielded good results. Incorrect calls yielded negative results and loss of market share to your competitors ?

In the midst of all this ... you are like a sparrow in a hurricane. You are subject to global economic mega forces & trends that you have absolutely no control over.

It's no easy thing to run a business. Sounds like you had a pretty good run.

I would just offer this opinion / observation:

The trend i've been seeing all across all business sectors is a process of small to large. The little fish got swallowed up by the medium sized fish. The medium sized fish got swallowed up by the big fish.

It's very difficult for the little guy to compete with the big dawg. The big dawg has the advantage of economy of scale. He can operate on a razor thin margin of profit.

The little guy eventually weakens and falls by the wayside because he's not geared up to compete in that way.

It's the end result that matters most in business ?