Scrapping Semi Trailers

Here are my totals from scrapping 5 semi trailers. All had wood floors most were aluminum sides with steel frames (T1 was all steel). The biggest one was a 40 foot trailer.

Trailer # Aluminum Yield Price/lb Total



T1 0.00 $0.00 $0.00
T2 1273.00 $0.55 $700.15
T3 897.00 $0.64 $573.60
T4 643.00 $0.77 $497.60
T5 1391.00 $0.72 1000.62

Trailer # Steel Yield Price/lb Total Trailer Total Hours

T1 8180 $0.15 1194.64 $1,194.64 59.00
T2 5520 $0.14 745.2 $1,445.35 36.00
T3 2460 $0.14 332.1 $905.70 34.50
T4 4920 $0.14 690.8 $1,188.40 37.50
T5 4240 $0.14 593.60 $1,594.22 45.50

Hope this pasted OK, it looks like it may have shifted a column. All the AL was clean, the price has been varying these past weeks. Hope this is useful to anyone considering this type of venture.

Originally Posted by CMHN

Well looks like for 5 or 6 weeks you had plenty of work and made out pretty well for your efforts, congratulations. I did something similar, but I was breaking down school buses, I made about $600 per bus breaking them down, and the last buss I couldn't get power to so I had the yard come out and tow it in and made $200.

Could you have rented a generator or gas cut off saw and still made a profit?

There are approximately 100 more of these to do. I only get half cause they belong to my dad. He's been buying them since the 70's and got them in the $100-200 range. Started on #6 today, hope to get a little faster at it. Having a plasma cutter, crane and circular saw makes it go faster and easier to load. Also I get a premium if I keep the AL under 4' x 4' and the steel @ 3' x 3'( but the payoff on the steel doesnt pay, I only reduce the size enough to fit on the trailer). I am also collecting refrigerators TVs and computers and moniters for winter.

Wow you have over 100 grand in semi trailers? Need any help?

I hauled a load into the scrapyard this sat and they were tearing these apart with an excavator with the big "pincher" on the end and loading it all into the shreader. I assume the shreader has some way of separating the aluminum out from the steel and wood. Hard to believe they'd forgo all that aluminum.

BTW, the excavator with the cutter on the end is the ultimate scrapping tool. That thing cut up two semi trailers in the time it took me to unload a Ford Ranger by hand.

Those shears are crazy. I've seen them shear large I beams like toothpicks.

Originally Posted by IdahoScrapper

Those shears are crazy. I've seen them shear large I beams like toothpicks.

Yea, they are scrapping a copper smelter here in El Paso (ASARCO) and have three excavators with shears and a couple of cranes. In two months they've nipped through almost the whole copper mill. I drive by there twice a day going to and from work drooling over all that scrap they are getting.