Contract awarded. My first E Waste collection event.

Well, I've bid three and actually won one. My first E Waste collection event. A fairly large college town with over 300,000 residents in the state of Texas. The City pays for it. My pricing for the event is as follows.

TV's and CRT monitors- $15 and $30. Limited to 2 per household unless they choose to pay the fees.
Computers and household electronics. Free
Printers, scanners, key boards, mice, remote controls, radios, etc - $0.18/lb
Lead acid batteries- free
NiCd, lithium and NiMh- $2.25/lb
No appliances or yard machinery.
Transportation $1550 per trailer x 4.



This event will beheld in October in conjunction with a household hazardous waste collection event. They do it every year and the last event had a total of 1789 cars come through. Not all had e waste but they did ship out a total of 4 53 foot semi trailers. Total weight shipped 56,000 lbs of electronics. I have already made arrangements with a nation wide company who is R2 and e-steward certified to take all the CRT tubes and tv's for $5 less than
what I'm billing. They will also take the printers scanners, keyboards, etc for $0.13/lb. They will also provide me with 4 laborers, and $1200 for transportation of 2 trailers.
Majority of the loads will be tv's and monitors. Of the 56,000 lbs they moved last year 28,430 was tv's and
monitors. 6788 lbs of lead acid batteries. 11,340 of the misc. 14,865 lbs of electronics. They manifested 17 pallets alone of towers.
Costs I will needs to cover.
Forklift rental, drop off and delivery. $475
150 pallets $4ea $600
Gaylord boxes estimated $400
Labor 6 guys from temp service $16/hr for 7 hrs. $1440
Transportation rental, mileage and fuel for 2 semi's and temp driver costs. $1980.
3 laborers for 24 hrs to break down computers and various electronics post event $864
Performance bond $1120

Sounds steep but most of these costs will be paid for alone by the $5 I make per CRT tube and since my subcontractor is covering the cost for the other two semi trucks and trailers I will have additional funds from my
transportation charges that should put me in the positive. Based off my estimates today's current prices and
volumes from the prior collection event I stand to make 2 times my monthly salary for a few days of planning,
7 hours of labor, and few more hours to cover misc. Now if I worked at Walmart 2 times my monthly salary wouldn't be that impressive but fortunately I have a descent day job. This event should pay for my 40x60 shop I'm in the process of building now. This event will also open doors to others if I'm able to pull it off. I'm also afraid if it is done as planned my day job may eventually change. My wife thinks I'm in way over my head. Less than a year ago I was breaking down computers in the garage, now I'm building a large shop to hold my inventory, insured for over a million bucks, contracts with large hospitals and a university now this.. And to think I still get excited when I find a pentium pro.
Thanks guys for all your help and guidance. Reading all the past and current posts have given my so much information. Plus the large amount of encouragement. I can't wait For October.

Congratulations! SC Good work! Let me know if you need any help hauling all the money home ; )

I'd recommend getting matching tshirts for all the workers to wear during the event. Let them keep it, and make it distinguished/fun/bright enough that they'll be proud to wear it other places. If you make it well, and get a good deal on a quantity, you can save the unused ones for your next event

Nice. Wishing all the best and hope for a recap when it is all done.

$16. an hour for some temps?? Usually temps up here make $10.-12. per hr max. My daughter runs an office for $14. per.

Originally Posted by Mechanic688

$16. an hour for some temps?? Usually temps up here make $10.-12. per hr max. My daughter runs an office for $14. per.

The employees themselves only get $10/hr the other $6 bucks goes to the companies overhead and profits. It's like legalized slavery. That number may come down a bit once I recruit more of my friends and family but to be completely honest with you, Id prefer to use temps. It's a lot easier being stern with a temp who respects you as an employer versus your older brother who an care less if I tell him to hurry up.

That is a great find. Good luck with that and I hope the turn out is bigger and better than last year.

Originally Posted by Bear

for $16 i'll be a temp, and act like your brother too! best of both worlds man, i should charge 30!

If that's the case I should expect you to be late and buy you lunch too. Thats what brothers are for.

Originally Posted by PistoneScrapProcessing

Now comes my actual questions. Why is it costing over a 1000 a trailer? Are they hauling it 250 miles away or what? The trailers should weight in at what 15,000 lbs or slightly more or less according your math of close to 60,000 lbs the last time this event was held. Why aren't you breaking down the items in the trailers? Whats the point of holding the event to make a 1000 of it when you can make 10,000 or more if you break it down and process it yourself? I am just confused as to why you are just being a middle man when you could be the man period?

All great questions.
High cost for trans is due to the fact, yes I am transporting over 300 miles. I could get around 45,000 pounds into each trailer but in reality the material I'm hauling takes up most of the space. Sure the tv's can be heavy but even if you stacked them all the way to the trailer ceiling you still
wouldn't max out on weight. You can only stack so high and shrink wrapped onto a pallet for it to make it to its final destination. Keep in mind i also have time restraints. Gates open at 7am and close at 2pm i must be off site by 5pm. I have neither the satff or the time to break down on site. Nor do I have the time once the event is over to deal with all the less valuable material like printers, keyboards, radios and such. I don't do this full time, I have a job I obligate 50 to 60 hours a week to. Sure I could make higher margins if I decided to manage everything myself but that would take a lot of time, a lot of storage, full time staff and headaches I'd rather pass on at this time. If I did decide to do this full time, I would have made other decisions. I'm keeping my fingers crossed there's a good showing and everyone brings two CRT's each. I anticipate 1200 CRT's which will cover majority of my costs. Last years event produced 17 pallets of computer towers which which held 45 to 50 towers per pallet. This is where I will be making most of my money. With scrap value being $12 to $14 per tower that should bring in close to $10,000. Lead acid batteries could easily bring in another $2000. If $12,000 is all I make it would be worth all my efforts even though my estimations have me making even more. I have a very strong resell outlet so I do have high intentions of doing well in
that department as well. I may not ultimately be "the man" because ill be giving away profits to another company, but I will be a
man making a large amount of money in a very short period of time with little effort. Work smarter not harder.