Water pipes grey cast iron and ductile iron

Greetings and help me out with your water pipe expertise. A lot of 50-100 year ols water pipe is failing and many time a contractor for a utility may just leave in in the ground unless they haul it out. This stuff is corroded inside and out. Sometimes utilties line it with cement -the old iron and the new ductile iron pipes normally already have a cement lining. What is the market for water pipes rusted and cement lined as it relates to being scrapped and reycled? I know the pipe manufactureres say that their pipe is made of 100% recycled iron, but that does not seem true if they are also buying new ore, etc. You guys know what is really going on-- so help me out to see if I should even get way too busy in this water pipe market.

A lot of 50-100 year ols water pipe is failing and many time a contractor for a utility may just leave in in the ground unless they haul it out.

If it's in the way of something and it needs to come out, then it certainly makes sense, to me at least, to scrap it. (Some contractors don't think that way though, so you could get lucky, if you ask.) That having been said though, the scrap value of old pipe in the ground most often isn't enough to make it worth the time and effort to chase it and remove it, because over and above the cost of digging, any hole that you dig needs to be properly backfilled and the surface restored to its previous condition.

As far as that goes, a lot of what I personally dig up comes out of old fill. It got buried because it wasn't worth the trouble of scrapping when they dug it up the last time.

Just like most anything else, call your yard to find out what they'll accept and what they'll pay, but in my experience, for cast iron, if you whack it hard enough with an excavator, or a sledge hammer, to break it into pieces you can manhandle, usually most of the mineral deposits on the inside will break loose. Corrosion isn't really that much of an issue.

Thanks Ditchdigger,



What about the ductile iron pipe lined with cement? It was seems like with some of the water industry rehabing their pipes with plactics, fiberglass and cement coatings recycling can be a problem.