Why Is E-Waste Business So Expensive [[ Warning Rant ]]

Ever since joining this forum, I have read various things on the E-Waste regarding prices, regulations, and so forth.
After doing extensive research ( months ), attempting to contact the buyers on this forum ( and many other places ), and looking up prices for scrap AND collector values ... I am frustrated as #### at the cost of doing business !!!
Unless I live in New Jersey, or "limited" places in California or Florida, I'm SOL.
The cheapest ( the cheapest quote for 100# ) from 5 different delivery services is $1.50 per pound from were I am located to the closest business I have found that buys E-Junk .
No one will reimburse shipping expenses unless I ship very high value items.
The only way I can make any profit is grinding everything up, than illegally dissolving the gold using chemicals.

Selling on Ebay is not even worth while. Just for the hay of it, I stripped down 4 pc towers I dug out of the local dumpster .
At current prices:
The monolithic capacitors were worth $0.30
RAM was worth $0.60
Motors @ 0.12 / LB at local yard ... giving me roughly $0.20
Gold fingers came to about $0.18
4 stripped mother boards - unsellable
4 stripped cd / dvd drive boards - unsellable
5 stripped HDD boards - unsellable
HDD platters - $0.75
4 processors - $2.00

The total I would have made: $4.03

*** Now if I sold directly a buyer ... after shipping costs

4 motherboards - $1.60
Cd / Dvd boards (negative) 0.30
5 HDD boards - $2.11
RAM - $0.50
4 processors $0.16



This brings my total to $4.07

This is the downside of this forum. It makes E-waste looks like easy money when reading posts. GOLD!. But it is far from it. You can only make "good" money if you can get a steady supply, and go all in. So, if your only getting just a few, stockpile it till you have a load.

the way the prices are droppin i think i'm going back to my regular non ferrous scrap...unless you get computers free

Didn't Gustavus grind up computer parts and dissolve the whole mess in acid? Seem to remember his thread from 'way back...

Jon.

I thought there was an ounce of gold in every PC.

Seriously though, if you think you're going to get rich in ewaste it's probably not going to happen. I'm not saying it can't happen. I'm sure there are people here who are doing very well in the business but they are probably dealing with thousands of pounds or tons of ewaste. If I were you I would slow down and let scrapping be something you do a few hours a day/week. Keep looking for PC's and save the boards. Sell any metal, aluminum or wire that comes from the PC's but save the boards and keep reading. I have been scrapping for a long time but started scrapping computers and telecom equipment about 2 years ago. I had 1800 pounds of circuit boards before I was able to identify and properly sort boards, know what to remove and what not to remove and to find buyers. I still have a lot to learn.

reminds me of a call i got today
lady saw my ad in local Facebook group about scrap

shes got 2-3 towers-old stuff
shes asking how much will i pay her

i explained that its not worth my while to pay for such a small amount of stuff
if she had a few 100 kg's of stuff, then maybe
she said she will get back to me...

people think of what they paid for the computers & expect to get something based on that value

yes..thats the thing..people pay hundreds of dollars for a new computer and you offer even 5 bucks they feel ripped off

This is my answer and solution to the OP. Like you said you are far away from any e-waste buyer, well that means to me that there is little or no compatation, just for your information most of us are far away from buyers so it's not like bringing aluminum cans to the local scrap yard. I think that you are going about this in the wrong way, I am not a refiner you stated in your post that you took off this and took off that from the boards that is something that I do not do, I am a recycler/ scraper not a refiner.just like all other aspects of recycling you have to have material on a steady basis the more material you have the higher prices you can get. Now with out being harsh realy dude you went dumpster diving found four towers what are you thinking you are gold mining? If you want to make some money, number one you have to go into full time, now once you comit you have to have a plan the number one thing I myself do is get material, I call all places that have scrap on a steady basis and find out what if any thing they want to sell that's right sell I buy most of my material that's the secret. You have you pay to get if you do not pay you will always find four towers in the trash, and like you have found out already you are not going any place but backwards. Now I am not saying to over pay for the goods but you must figure what you can pay, there is no secret formala to this, and myself I have just got into e-waste end of the business a short time ago, but this is what I will share with you, get twenty towers scrap out the power supply's, wires, heat sinks, hard drives, floppy's and cd,s drives and the tin/ shread of course pull all the boards, CPU chips, finger cards, and every thing else that is gold or silver plated.now after you weigh up all the scrap you can sell localy that does not pay to ship divide it by twenty that's the magic number, it could be three, four,dollars now you recoup most of your investment, now start loading the boxs or gay lords and when full ship them with a forum transportation member to a forum buyer.buy it recycle it sell it that's the way that works for mr.

Originally Posted by petehart

yes..thats the thing..people pay hundreds of dollars for a new computer and you offer even 5 bucks they feel ripped off

Forget individuals by from computer repair shops scrap yards and business upgrading there systems when a person calls and tells us they want to sell there computer we tell them put it in craigs or something we pay scrap value not centamental value.

I picked up from a school today. I have to get the rest tomorrow. I moved about 150 computer towers. The librarian that I met with was surprised that each computer wasn't "worth at least $50". She thought that was the gold value.

Now, some of those will be refurbished. That's where the better money is.

When I ship E-Waste, I send as much as I can. I'm waiting to ship a pallet of stuff this time. 4 PCs for free is cool. But, shipping will eat you whole. There's a man on the Buyer's thread that offers freight brokering (Can't mention his name specifically here, but you'll find him). Read through the post. When you ship a whole pallet, the costs are A LOT less.

Just my $0.02

Yeah, Gustavus was one interesting guy. With a brain as agile and fertile as a bunch of us put together! And he carried out his ideas to see if they worked or not, plus being generous with feeding back the results to us.

Its a pity he signed off of here. I never did figure out why, but I guess something here PO'ed him big time. Hopefully time will heal if thats what the issue was...

Jon.

Unless I live in New Jersey, or "limited" places in California or Florida, I'm SOL.
??????????? I must be in one of those "LIMITED" places in California. I don't think your SOL, just need to do more "Extensive Research". I'm going out to the shop and tear the $hit out of something and "Research it". LOL.

The problem with it being made to be easy isn't this forum. We state it a lot this is not easy work or for those who won't go out there an get the items. If you come here an think this is easy, your not reading the forums. Or your reading other ones. The problem from my view of things is as BC said...people see they can make money off ewaste but fail to read the details like..you need weight to make money. I've said this in many of my posts when someone refers to telling to much about ewaste. Unless your dealing with a yard or another scrapper, most people won't take the time to save up even the minimum amount needed to make a profit. The Lazy factor far out weighs the "I want to make money an be successful" factor when it comes to the average person.

Just like any business you need to put time an effort into it. research would have shown that most of us who ship things out do so with a decent amount of weight. You should be aiming for 60lb boxes at lest before shipping anything. Some folks wait till they have more like Spin with 1000lbs, I know one of our members waits till he has 30,000lbs. Proper research would have been reading a ton of threads from the ewaste side of the forum, an if it had been done so..there are several threads that mention the magic weight to ship.

I think it was olddude who used the phrase first (if not, to bad, Your getting credit anyhow for it) "If you think scrapping(ewaste in this case) is easy, your doing it wrong."

You will bleed, curse, lose money, make money, bleed more, curse more, repeat as needed. lol.

It's great work, but it's just that...work. When you think it's getting easy it's time to go get more business.

An I ain't trying to be harsh but again..I don't excel at dancing around things, or sugarcoating the realities of the business. If you can't figure out how to make it work after studying the hell out the forums an all it's posts, I don't know what to tell you.

I wish ya luck tho, an much patience.

Sirscrapalot - Keeping it real, Yo.