Starting up my E-Waste business - recent load, plans, business cards - pics included - Page 2

when i'ts true it is no longer a conspericy theory but conspericy fact. If you look at the complete deswcription taq on any server with a starting point in China, even an IBM $50,000 one in the small print you will find these words "assembled from new and USED components"

a heavy hammer and a 1 in wood chisel is one of your most important tools when working e waste.[/QUOTE]

OLDDUDE, you've mentioned this method a few times including here. How do you keep the board from moving around? Do you clamp it to your bench or what? The method works, don't misunderstand, but the board doesn't stay put which makes things very difficult. Please explain further.

I use an old computer case. it has three 6 inch sides and one 1/2 inch side. this keeps the chips from flying all over the place but also allows the use of the hammer and chisel.

P.S. keep a file handy and keep the chisel sharp and a light tap will usually work.

Originally Posted by BRASSCATCHER

Old dude has hit the nail on the head. You can see it in the quantity of pre 2000 computers. As the chinese boards start to come more and more into the market prices will be adjusted accordingly by refiners, which trickles down to the buyers here which will affect the sellers(us) bottom lines. The other problem is competing with those that are buying towers at 100 times what they are worth. Check out some of your local gov auctions. One that I followed was for 5 pallets of dell optiplex towers. Each pallet had 40 towers. To me my top bid would have been about $1200.00 Well the final price was $4800.00 two factors are working here. Either someone bought them to refurbish and resell, or the competition is coming from overseas...china. The more I watch these auctions the more I believe it is the latter of the two. The auctions stipulate that winning bidders MUST pick up with either a 48 ft trailer or a 40 ft shipping container. Now most of the auctions that I watch are pretty close to shipping ports up here in the north east. So if you add everything up it has to be overseas buyers that are pricing the small timers out since labor and overhead is so cheap. Just my two cents...but then again I like conspiracy theory's.

I’ve been giving this some thought and I think what olddude and some of the other guys are saying are spot-on, however, look at some of the other metrics. I read somewhere that individuals used to replace their computers every 5-7 years whereas today it is every 2 years. The same holds true for other consumer electronics like cell phones and TV’s. Businesses are also replacing their servers/telecommunication equipment at a much faster rate.

What i’m saying is, although we might not get $4.50 per pound motherboards moving forward, we may get $1.25 per pound boards in much larger volume.

With this being said, we all need to start thinking of additional avenues within the e-waste business to secure income. Selling parts, charging to destroy information, doing mobile data destruction, looking overseas for buyers and sellers, etc.

It's not just China... It's huge in Pakistan right now... a lot of the buyers are Paki and they are all about child/free labor. They can pay 3-4 times what we can justify as "worth it". The best part is, the gov't is selling these units to these people without any stipulations. Just get it out in 48 hours. They are putting heavy restrictions on us to make sure we don't ship this stuff overseas all while they are selling it direct to the "bad buyers"..

From what I've been told, this is going to change very soon. Let's all hope.. because at this rate it's just going to be another job going overseas and another environmental disaster on foreign shores..

Has anyone looked into becoming R2 or E-Stewart certified? I know it's an expensive certification process, but the turn around can be very profitable. Anyone has a thought on that?

Originally Posted by LogicRecycling

Has anyone looked into becoming R2 or E-Stewart certified? I know it's an expensive certification process, but the turn around can be very profitable. Anyone has a thought on that?

I'm not sure I'm at that point yet, but it is something to consider. Right now I'm taking the middleman approach. Like most of us, I dont do any actual recycling, just seperating and sorting of product. Then I disperse to companies that will do the final processing, be it for metal, plastics, boards, etc. Some of my customers will want to know the downstream destination of the items so they can cover themselves by being environmentally friendly. Seeing as I'm not certified, I try to have buyers that have gone through the process to give myself a leg up on the sales pitch. Some customers dont care, but eventually that will change due to the amount of pressure the environmentalists put on companies to "out-green" each other.

Hi my name is Adam
I am new to this is my first post on this form. So here it goes.
I think China is buying them and turning around and selling them to 3rd world countries like Nigeria. I tried to buy computer scrap 3 times. The first time shipping cost shipping cost to much from Nigeria. Threee second and third time I tried to buy scrap from Alibaba.com and got scammed out of the 2 deals. Lesson learned. The point is I agree that China us buying them because shipping laws for us prevents us from shipping to places like Nigeria and India.
Btw here in California Tvs get recycled for free at the local dump. So I take all the guts out put the back on and take it to the dump for free.

Originally Posted by mikeinreco

just did a search out 1000 miles for Gov't Surplus of computers currently 607 auctions are LIVE and able to be bid on....At least at these you know you will acquire product........Sometimes parts may be missing but I have never once gone to pick up my items and they were not there

It's next to impossible to make money on those auctions ... too many bidders .
On a side note: trucks are cheap !

Originally Posted by mikeinreco

guess ive been doing something wrong all these years...glad you think theres no money to be made less competition for me

Given how much you's pay per tower, I seriously do not know how you's turn a profit ...
My break even point is $1.28 per tower ( total cost )