Was a hobby scrapper, want to start E-scrapping (OHIO)

Hello, I have been reading here for awhile about various E-scrapping and motor scrapping.
My history with scrapping: I started out with cans, then one day I discovered a free bin behind the bike shop I like.
I asked if I could take some things, and the worker said yes we encourage that as its less for us to throw out.
They throw out everything: bikes{some working but crappy}, wheels, tires, tubes, and so on.

I called the scrap yards to see if they took these things and found out if you separate out the stainless and aluminum
you get a much higher price... this was about 2001... after a long time using this bin the owner came out and began yelling at
me( I mean we are talking 5+ years, and periodically chatting with the workers no one said stop).

Without notice he must have decided to sell all the scrap to someone, but didn't tell all the users that had visited the bin.
At the time I was the only one interested in dismantling all of the unusable bent wheels into scrap, it was work and time
consuming. I did get better and faster of course.

I tried pallets, but found it too time consuming and not as much fun or money.

Recently I tried to recycle the home computers, driving into town on E recycle day for the event. I was turned away because
they were full. Not knowing what to do with this stuff, I put it out on the curb. Not a hour later it was gone except the monitor.
Next day that was gone too. It got me thinking what are people snapping this trash for there isn't much copper??

I guess after finding out, now I know from reading this forum .



I'm still reading up, but just want to get started collecting e-waste. I think this area is open to collecting based on the response to the recycle day. I am not sure how to harness the waste and get it to me. Or how I would handle it all if I could.

How did others get going with this? I mean beyond driving around looking at the curb?

Welcome from south of Chicago

Welcome from Indiana...

ThanKs for the welcomes, and the links.

I did read all of the general things for beginners. Watched some videos about identifying the parts of the towers.
I have a general starting list gleaned from this site, I suppose I will just try and see what works here.

Yesterday I answered a Craigslist AD just to get started with learning. It was a "free" ad, so just the cost of gas for
2 towers, a laptop and miscellaneous directv boxes. On the way home, I spotted another tower and a monitor.
Good omen I think.

As someone who was involved in an ewaste company in Ohio, it is an interesting state. The landfills are each run by the local town, not by a big county as they are here in MD. In MD, you can drop your electronics off at the landfill. In Ohio, most towns do not allow for electronics drop off. One suggestion is to talk with the local towns. Many have once a year or twice a year waste collections. Tell them you want to set up a truck to collect their electronics to keep them out of the landfill. Many will let you do it. You could even say you only want the computers. When we did it, the towns let us just have them for free. Sometimes we got 100 or more computers in a day. Homeowner associations often sponsor some of these events. When we did an event with Cuyahoga Falls, we filled 3 semis with TVs (at $10 each), 2 semis of computers, 3 40ft rolloffs of waste, a gaylord of wire and half a gaylord of phones.

Some towns may let you put a gaylord or two at their landfill where people can put electronics. (Have to be careful that someone is there to make sure the stuff is not stolen).

Good luck.

Rok, I am from MD. I found the landfills here(ohio) strange, and the recycling or lack of it even stranger. Those are good ideas and the area here is an untapped market. There was an electronic recycling day in my area, and it was overwhelmed and trucks filled in less than an hour.
I am also thinking of offering a hard drive wiping service here for businesses, or hospitals. Get paid to do the wipe, and dispose of the old equipment for free.

My roadside pick had an older hard drive in it, might be worth my time to sell the parts separately. A ~1997 western digital caviar drive.