Analysis of ewaste true value - Page 2

Originally Posted by ScrapYaHerd

Msearl- In business everyone needs to make money, however the metrics used to distribute the earnings, and who earns what tend to be skewed...Sales can sometimes make as much or more than the owner/ceo even though they take on no risk, little vested in the company, and little physical labor usually, they just so happen to bring the $$ into the company. Then you got a laborer who busts ass all day, the job is integral into the success of the company but is payed the least, everyone thinks they should make top dollar no matter what it is. I am very well versed in risk vs return, capital expenditures, evaluating projects and predicting/discounting cash flows. I understand for a company to take on setting up a refinery they are going to hopefully evaluate all of this. The point of this thread was not to give perceptions of how we each think business should work but instead to figure out a rough margin on ewaste so lets get back on track. Maybe one day I will own a refinery never know...

Mikenreco-I hope you have other ways to increase your margin working hard for 20-30% isn't much...I think a good margin is at least 40-50%....Some resellers I hear hit the 1000% mark often.I'm an investor so I'M VERY FOCUSED ON % RETURNS. I work 80-90hrs and I expect my money to work even harder for me.

jghilino-There was steel as well as other things like gases, earth oxides, plastics, etc.that were resold but for simplicity purposes I did not include those materials. Some of the articles I read mentioned basically 0 waste systems.

To be competitive I think 30% after expenses is good.......This means every 1000 I spend I make 300 profit........For example I spent $700 today buying computer scrap from two individuals..........After shipping time etc I will bring in well over $1000 shipping to ewasted...........Who else is making $300 a day??? Not to many individuals out there doing manual labor make that kind of money and this is fairly regular for me so I'll take it LOL..............

Originally Posted by unknownk

Exactly where is the added value coming from to give you greater then 40-50% return on investment in a commodity market without ripping people off?

i buy scrap and sort and process it and make over 50% on the majority of it, theres a fine line between what you call ripping people off and making a legitimate profit. The way i look at it is if you both agree on a price for the scrap and pay them that amount or better then its a square deal. It is not my job to tell the seller exactly what they have or whats it worth. It is my job to process it sort it and resell it. It is the scrap sellers responsibility to determine what they have and what it should sell for. If the seller is to lazy to do there homework than the loss is on them plain and simple. I always pay more than the agreed price so they always come back and bring me more referrals.

For example i pay $10 for a pound for some high grade boards. I cut the fingers and plated areas off and sell them for $20, and sell whats left of the boards for $2. Thats a 120% profit. Is it my job to tell the seller how to process, resell or refine there scrap to get top dollar, i think not. I will help sellers sort there scrap by type and pay them for it by type but thats as far as i am willing to go.

Originally Posted by ScrapYaHerd

I've always thought about operating/profit margins while scrapping. With typical scrap it is pretty easy since there is a maximum of only 1 or 2 metals combined and you can find the spot/market prices of these metals rather easily. This helps me figure out how the scrap business works and what margins everyone operates on. When recycling ewaste I have never been able to quite grasp what is the exact make up, what are the margins, and how much is really to be made in the end. So that basically brought me to ask myself what is my load really worth? For me purchasing high grade boards is the lowest margin of anything which makes what I found funny.


Tonight I did a little research on the process the big companies use on refining the material, about $25,000 bare minimum per process/metal. I quick/rough calculated a "small" setup would be no less than 250k just in equipment. This might explain why someone feels entitled to so much of the profit in the end. I will take you through some numbers and show how it works.


Lets say your busy and you get 1,000lbs of clean "mother boards" in a month.

All prices will be roughly around spot. This is percentages I gathered through my research of that 1,000lbs of material.

Copper value @ $3.70/lb=$429
Lead@$1.00/lb=$10
Zinc@$.90/lb=$5
Alum@$.90=$9
Nickel@$8/lb=$80
Gold@$25,000/lb=$25,000
Silver@$493/lb=$246
Palladium@650=$3,250

Lets say that is a good mix and you get $4.50/lb you just made $4,500, wow big deal hahah......

Wherever your buyer sells to it's final value should be $29,000...This price and market are highly dependent on metal prices. There is definite disproportion of margin looks like a good business to be in to me with over 500% profit margin between us and the refiner.

1,000lbs of Clean Mother Boards is busy....I do that in a week and a half...and I just run a recycle/ scrap yard...sounds like either A- your are not ambitious (lazy) or B- you have employees that are not inspired/ ambitious (lazy) ....either way I'd go back to the board on that one bc I get paid more than that per pound for my boards...you must look at overhead...ALL OVERHEAD...

I'm just kinda dumbfounded how 1,000lbs a month can be busy...need more coffee

See if Ewasted will share his story about good boards on top of a bunch of gaylords and what he found under them.

It's a good story for this type of business.

Which one LOL

Well...I'd fly out...you can get pretty cheap flights with south west and be back in less than a day and on to the next load...

And my facility has less than 10 employees...I have 2 guys dis-mantling/ processing part time on the computer end (as the rest of the time they work on my salvaged auto) then 2 others processing the paper goods and plastics. Glass is more of an obscurity around me for recycling...(besides the bullet proof glass sheets that I currently still have over 24,000 lbs of if anyone is interested)

And my bank is stretched through many different markets and in regards to my e-waste dept...it is at times the equivalent...

I guess it all depends on the biz' plan...their workflow...what they do, how they do it, how quickly they can turn it to reinvest it somewhere else...

I don't live in a big city though am located between the 2 largest in my state and just happen to be lucky enough to be 30-45 mins from my port. (it also helps that I've been in this industry since I was 19 and spent many years just learning every bit of knowledge I could from whoever have a moment to talk...selectively that is...I was able to learn from their successes and failures and when my chance came...I grabbed it and haven't looked back!)

There are a couple of threads on here that give links to pdf files from refinners like umicore (http://archive.basel.int/industry/si...07/umicore.pdf) that go into the nitty gritty of what can be refinned from certain electronics (give or take)....

But I've been taken by customers before...I'd rather have learned the lesson early than when I'm buying 10k of computers and really have my butt handed to me...that percentage of lose should be expected in our line of business...up to a certain point that is.

Originally Posted by URBANERECYCLING

Scrap is and always has been a volume and niche business. The structure of the industry in the glory days of metals was the peddler sold to the small yard. The small yard sold to the big yard and the big yard sold to the mill. Each step of the way everyone made money.That went away when the conglomerates came in and bought up everyone in the 90s and again in the past few years. E-Scrap is still running the proper way. The smaller guys are selling to places like Ewaste and myself and although Ewasted might be going to the refiner im going as high up as possible without the refiner. I have niche markets for my low grade and I run my business accordingly . I dont publish a price list because I wont pay a one time customer with 30 lbs the same price I pay some of you guys and other repeat and volume customers. That is how I can work off of small margins and im content with my results..You and Joe are working off of a much bigger percentage but your doing the work. im recieving a finished package from you that I dont have to assign a labor cost to because its ready to ship. if you actually paid yourselfs a salary or hourly wage you would find I believe that you are actually working off of the same margins the rest of us are. Nothing wrong with how your thinking except the numbers. The reason I finally piped in was that in order for you and evryone else to grow there has to be a realistic understanding of how the industry works. Your growth only helps me as it all comes back to volume...

Was that your introduction??

Originally Posted by mikeinreco

Was that your introduction??

I'm glad someone else noticed...felt like I was put in timeout

Yes it was. Considering the recent bullying or smart ass comments made at people who mispelled or spoke the word "sale" wrong and the mocking of a foreign buyer introducing themselves, I think my words should be adequate.....