Question for e-waste recyclers

Originally Posted by PistoneScrapProcessing

I have been in the scrap industry since I was a kid. I am not concerned about losing money some months that's the nature of doing business in the scrap industry. You just need to maximize your profit anyway you can. As long as I am not bleeding less then 10,000 a month I can weather the storm to start out. Me and my cutting crew will still be out in the burning field every day of the scrap yard we would be selling to generating profit no matter if the market is up or down. We have a forever contract with them. Trust me processing scrap with huge torches has got to be way harder then breaking down e-waste thats why I said it can't be that hard. Working directly with the scrap yard owner day in and day out makes me able to have a leg up on others to as far as pricing goes. In order for it to be attractive to me I would want to make at least 20 percent profit on my material excluding my other built costs I mentioned. That's a minimum. I am not trying to sound like d-head either sorry if it sounded like that to. I am just curious about the business. I just want to buy volume and turn it as quick as possible. Thats my thing moving material.

If you are looking to make 20%, this isnt the business for you. As for turning material, everyone on this forum is in that boat... thats what we do.

The business is run on less than 10% ... especially if you are dealing with printed circuit board material. as i had mentioned earlier, the yields and recoveries are on a decline and theres no changing that. Ask anyone thats into gold recovery, no two lots are the same. We have several years of yields/trends on different groups of material so we can make educated decisions about our purchases. Our typical turnaround to pay is approximately 3-4 months, getting paid on a different market.

I torched heat exchangers for a summer, i get it, its not easy. I find it insulting when others talk about e waste and it being a quick buck. Breaking down scrap efficiently enough, with enough volume whil still turning a profit over cheap chinese and central american labor is no easy task at all.