Direct To Refiners - Page 2

Originally Posted by armygreywolf

I stated time and again, the refiner will screw you if your not watching. It is not worth your time to go down there and watch your material get run. Heck we've watched the sampling process and it's in one word: janky. The reality of the situation is if you do not know what your doing, they will not tell you. And if they don't tell you, then you will think your results are normal and buy based on that until someone comes along to all your sellers and tells them he can pay more...then what? You need a full truckload. It needs to be sorted properly to know it's minimum returned value. Then you need to babysit the processing of your material for the duration. You can broker that out or do it yourself but it must be done. The service would not be available if it wasn't an issue. Refiners as a lot are a dishonest industry. They are encouraged to fluff their bottom lines wherever they can.

I refine memory and fiber cpus in house. I built the equipment to do it, it is 99% a mechanical process. I even send the waste out for testing to ensure the process is doing what I designed it to do.

Long story short, it's risk management that will make your decision for you.

I totally agree you'll get screwed over by the refinery, they ignore independent assays.

Now 20 gaylords would merit personal attendance or a hired referee to cover your assets.

As for mechanical gold recovery, good to see that I;m not the only one using this procedure, said this before that gold is soft and will run off easily using mechanical methods.

Originally Posted by tski72

Also, to add to a few posts, 5 million pounds a year is a massive amount, Unless you are a buyer with that kind of volume, you most likely will not see the amount of money you think. I had contacted a plastics refiner here in the Chicago area some years ago by accident looking for a plastics buyer, and the girl that I was talking to gave me the minimums that they deal with, we are talking like 3 to 4 semi's a week, constantly and bailed.

Even shipping a truckload of motherboards to one of the buyers here would be well worth your startup and the shipping can also go through someone here, I seem to remember there used to be a member that had specials for full truckloads and he had his own carriage company or something like that.

Now nobody knows the size of your operation or the actual quantity that you are receiving but if you are just getting into the business of e-waste, you need to take the steps to get to the next level.

Also if you became a paid member, you would have access to the closed section and there has been a lot of this sorta thing discussed in there, an open forum, like this thread, will not get you the answers you so desire. Like I recommended in an earlier post, introduce yourself, give people a little background on you and your business and fill in your profile as much as you can, then get your paid lifetime membership, the best money I spent, and start doing the research through the old treads, we all have done it.

I can't speak for anyone else here on the forum, but for me, I was just adding my trials and mishaps with wanting to go big and had a rude awakening, which is why I stuck with the "get, sort, sell, start over" attitude. It pays really quick and it keeps me working, usually. Everyone just seems to be trying to help you move forward, sitting on Gaylord's of product waiting to find a refiner just doesn't seem cost effective, unless you have a huge line of open credit. IMO.

Appreciate the comments, All i was asking for is anyone with direct experience with a refiner like Sabin so i can make an educated decision as to what to do with this product, maybe selling to Ewasted or board sort is best for me IDK. As stated above by several people, one of my concerns is that i will get ripped off sending a truckload to a refiner and "hoping for the best".

I started in this industry several years ago working (volunteering) at Ewaste Events, that progressed into me purchasing some of the material collected at events and repairing and re-selling electronics, i made a little extra money but truly i did it because i enjoyed what i was doing. Thru the years I have made a lot of connections and in January decided to start a company with my brother when we secured several large contracts, along with fixed contracts we host both paid and free events monthly. We were prepared for the CRT's, it was our biggest concerns, one thing we were not prepared for was the volume of commodity laden materials. Incoming waste in June was 35,863Lbs (35% CRT's), CRT's, power supplies, optical drives got to WI but all we have shipped so far is one load of CRT's, Desktops are broken down and components sold, laptops are re-purposed if possible, copper aluminum and steel sold locally, most peripherals are shipped 250 miles and recycled as "TIN" for $.03/Lb. Whats left, HDD's & Boards (dual, single, finger, telecom, lowgrade). As of today i have 6 gaylords full of single metal socket boards and other boxes partial filled with other types. i have a lot of room to store this stuff but im just trying to plan for late fall when i will have a full truckload.

I have contacted Sabin, i don't need 5M Lbs, there is a set processing fee of $2,500 and a declining schedule based on volume. Im waiting to get all the particulars, i had to fill out some federal forms (KYC & Anti corruption) before they will discuss specifics which were submitted last week. Again if anyone has experience with direct ship to a refiner i would like to hear the good and bad.

Originally Posted by armygreywolf

I stated time and again, the refiner will screw you if your not watching. It is not worth your time to go down there and watch your material get run. Heck we've watched the sampling process and it's in one word: janky. The reality of the situation is if you do not know what your doing, they will not tell you. And if they don't tell you, then you will think your results are normal and buy based on that until someone comes along to all your sellers and tells them he can pay more...then what? You need a full truckload. It needs to be sorted properly to know it's minimum returned value. Then you need to babysit the processing of your material for the duration. You can broker that out or do it yourself but it must be done. The service would not be available if it wasn't an issue. Refiners as a lot are a dishonest industry. They are encouraged to fluff their bottom lines wherever they can.

I refine memory and fiber cpus in house. I built the equipment to do it, it is 99% a mechanical process. I even send the waste out for testing to ensure the process is doing what I designed it to do.

Long story short, it's risk management that will make your decision for you.

Good info thanks,

Originally Posted by armygreywolf

I don't believe 20 gaylords of e-waste merits watchdogging honestly. The time spent and amount you will pay for that will undercut the result enough that a knowledgable intermediary would have been a better sell option. There are exceptions, if those 20 gaylords were say... manufacturing waste such as sim card or pcb manufacturing punchouts. If it was 20 gaylords of cell phones I might go watch myself, hard drive boards, ram, and telecom, sure. Actual boards...no way.

The second quandry is that you yourself do not know the process, so while you can go and watch...what good does that do if your unaware of what is right and wrong about the process? Having a professional watch your material leaves you basing your decisions on their reputation on the subject. And your assuming they are physically present for the entire process which is a near impossibility. Please don't take the assumption that the people speaking are naysayers because we are also buyers. Buyers absorb RISK. We do this because we are trading our knowledge of the industry, and of grading to pay you a set amount. Therefore you are receiving security in your material grades and payouts based on that fact.

Again, big 'ol grain of salt.

Again, good info. I can bet non of you are withing 500-600 miles of me, so im still stuck at sending a load and hoping for the best? Seems like im taking the same risk either way, what am i missing?

Originally Posted by PartTimeScrapper

I also sell direct to refiner. Its a long learning process and this is something most people wont talk about on the open forum. If your just starting out I would sell to one of the buyers here on the forum. Asa buyer here myself I started out selling to these buyers until I learned the business. Now I am also a buyer on here as well.

Sent you a PM

Originally Posted by miked

I am too small to get involved in the concept of me sending directly to a refiner. I concentrate on doing what I do best, locating, breaking down and sorting of ewaste. I let my buyer(s) to do what they do best.

If you want to learn about sorting/grading of boards read more of the threads here and you will pick it up eventually. If your volume warrants it hire one of the other members to come and teach you.
73, Mike

Thanks, sorting sucks. think we have it down approx 80% still learning.

Originally Posted by tski72

See here is an old post that sounds appropriate for this. and it is the first one in the similar posts box. have a read, it may be a few years old, but you can't change the industry.

https://www.scrapmetalforum.com/gene...l-suggest.html

Good Read, Thanks

Originally Posted by Ewasted

Ultimately, what are you looking to achieve by going to a refinery?

Ewasted,

I think the only advantage i can see to sending it to a refiner is keeping more money in my pocket. What i'm trying to determine is the risk and effort variance between a refiner and a buyer. As I see it (I've been wrong before) Risk is the same, i can get screwed just as easily by by both sides. Effort, I still sort and load truck with refiner or buyer?

My situation is probably a little different from most as i reside in a part of the country with very few if any buyers (still looking for one). Ewasted if you were able to come over to our shop and do a monthly buy, i might go that direction. I get really curious when someone tells me its to hard to do, that tells me maybe i should look a little closer.

I think i have made up my mind and i appreciate everyone input on this. Im going to select a refiner and ship as soon as i have 20,000 Lbs (or whatever i can cram into a truckload). Since this whole process seems to be a huge mystery, im going to post my step by step process here. I hope to have a full truckload by October, i will weigh and sort everything going into the truck and report the weights by product (with pictures) here before it ships, you guys can tell me what your buyers are paying for these products that way we can compare the value a buyer would pay to what i ultimately get. Im going to assume i will get some kind of report back from the refiner telling what i sent and the value recovered, i will scan that info and post it here as well. I like being the Guinea Pig and im really curious myself, might get screwed but thats ok we will find out.

Selling to refiners isn't always what you think. Some say they are refiners and really are not. I had a refiner break promises to me and also give me poor results. When asked about it, they blamed everything on me.

Bottom line is that you have to know what you are doing. If you don't, you will get burned quick.

1. How does one know they got screwed over by a refiner? Unless you're making boards and putting a lb of gold in, how do you know? 2. You'll risk 20k lbs to a refiner.... but you won't send 100 lbs to one of our guys. 3. DO NOT POST YOUR RESULTS HERE. All it does is piss people off. You aren't going to find out here if you got screwed, because we aren't there sorting. We don't know what's in the gaylords. 4. You said yourself you can't grade. Enough said. 5. You keep name dropping Boardsort. Enough said. 6. You claim 20k in a truck. You are "buying" the whole truck. You WILL get 40k in there. Otherwise, waste of time. 7. You haven't read enough. I can name, off hand, 5 people who have done the same thing you have. They aren't here anymore. 8. You sent stuff to Wisconsin. We all know who you sent to. You sent stuff that had no value, to them. I had to type this... I don't respond anymore to most, but I for one want Ewasted to get bigger. There's more money there if he gets 2 steps bigger. And I don't think enough people stick up for him.