Newbi to e-scraping

Hi all!

I have been looking into e-scraping for some time and sadly this is very difficult where i live. Here in Sweden we recycling almets Everything and the market is dominated by a few very big players. So scrap is hard to come by.

I have been looking into alternatives and found a lot of Sellers on ebay and also on Alibaba.coom (china). It is obv that you can not trust people and because of that buying is almost impossible. Why would i chinese seller sell to a customer around the World when he could offload it all in his own country?

Does any one here have any experience with buying from China or Ebay?

Best Regards
Håkan

Welcome
I agree with Mike. Also be very careful of buying stuff from Alibaba. Its supper easy to get scammed. Even though there are some legit companies on there, make sure you do your homework. I have done both lost money and bought successfully (Solar chargers) from that site.

As Mike said, your best bet would be to try computer repair shops. You might also think of places that have a lot of computers that they upgrade every three years or so like universities. Many Universities donate their old computers to local schools but just like repair shops they should have non-working stuff lying around. Either way you will likely have to buy the scrap.

Hi! Thank you for your answers.

As many of you said, its Always a pain to find stuff to scrap. But im not in this for a hobby, im looking to start a solid business with this. Im thinking of scraping larger amounts of material but i not sure how yet.

One idea is to grind it down, you know, no matter if it is a harddrive, motherboard, RAM, or an aluminum/steal case, and then sort out the hevay stuff from the light and then process it further.

It is fun to read the threads on this forum, i learn a lot and there seems to be a lot of very skilled people here.

/Håkan

Than you tski!

How come you decided not to "go big"? I guess you have an job on the side?

Thank you tski for the insights. I have been reading around the forum and i have not found much information about the economical side of this business. This is what makes your answer interesting. You do this full time and support you family. I agree that this is the most important goal to have. How much do you need at minimun, after taxes to support a normal family?


For me, if i should have the same salary that i have today i would need to get scrap for 6800 usd/month. That includes cost for my car with about 1200/month. The gas here is about 6 usd /gallon. I dont know if that is even possible to achieve in a small business with the conditions that apply here. And since i already run 3 companies i need to be looking at this from an bigger perspective than just a small hobby or to support myself.

$6800 is a huge nut to crack. I'm sure some here are doing it but I expect the cost of living in most of rural America is a lot less.

Thank you for the answers.

Hipogear: Yeah, that is an big amount. And if i take only the cost for my salery this is what is looks like:

Salary (before tax): 4080 usd
Tax (company tax on salary): 1346 usd
The cost of my salary for the company is 5426 usd. Then i need to pay incomde tax on 4080. So my disposable income is about 2850 usd.

The problem is the amount of scrapping i need to do to make this kind of money.

Miceinreco:
No Ferrari Its a normal car. But i cant use my current car for this, i need to buy a new one. But the biggest problem is the gas price, at almost 6 usd per gallon the price for scrapping goes up. ALOT.

I have 3 other companies that i run, with empolyees so i have no intentions of quitting that. The problem is that the amount of material i need is so big it will be difficult to collect it. And when i do find material i need to be able to take every little bit of profit that i can from that material. That is why my thought is to refine, not only to collect and sell to the next guy.

Originally Posted by Knofan

Hipogear: Yeah, that is an big amount. And if i take only the cost for my salery this is what is looks like:

Salary (before tax): 4080 usd
Tax (company tax on salary): 1346 usd
The cost of my salary for the company is 5426 usd. Then i need to pay incomde tax on 4080. So my disposable income is about 2850 usd.

The problem is the amount of scrapping i need to do to make this kind of money.

Looks much more reasonable when you break it down. Still tough to do. Start networking sooner rather than later to find those contacts that can hook you up. I belive it can be done but will require a ton of hustle. Good luck, I wish you much success.