Good to be here!

Originally Posted by hitch

Hi everybody,

We're starting off with electricians whereby we're developing a slick and innovative platform for electricians to recycle their scrap cables. The scrap industry is new me and I'm really excited for what lies ahead and learning a new trade! I have a hell of a lot to learn so any tips/pieces of advice would be warmly welcome.

Sounds like a great idea, assuming you can get people to use the platform, it could be a good and profitable idea. I am a software engineer as my day job, and have been trying to think of a way to intertwine my day job with my scrapping hobby, but never came up with anything I thought would work out well. So I'd be interested in following if your platform gets off the ground! Good luck!

Even though wires may seem like a tiny slice of the scrapping world, there is tons and tons of variables and details that will decide the best and most profitable way for you to handle them such as

wire type (copper wire, computer wire, usb wires, cat5 wire, etc etc, there is tons of types of wire/cable)
wire insulation amount
insulation to metal material ratio/reclamation amounts
wire gauge
wire material (copper, alum, fiber, other, etc)
stranded or solid
etc etc

Thats just for what the wires your get are then there is HOW much of each you can get, what buyers you can find, if you want to strip/granulate/process them yourself or sell as you get them.... logistics (of getting the wires from everyone on the platform + getting them to a seller).... lots and lots to think about. Good luck!

Originally Posted by kss

Sounds like a great idea, assuming you can get people to use the platform, it could be a good and profitable idea. I am a software engineer as my day job, and have been trying to think of a way to intertwine my day job with my scrapping hobby, but never came up with anything I thought would work out well. So I'd be interested in following if your platform gets off the ground! Good luck!

Even though wires may seem like a tiny slice of the scrapping world, there is tons and tons of variables and details that will decide the best and most profitable way for you to handle them such as

wire type (copper wire, computer wire, usb wires, cat5 wire, etc etc, there is tons of types of wire/cable)
wire insulation amount
insulation to metal material ratio/reclamation amounts
wire gauge
wire material (copper, alum, fiber, other, etc)
stranded or solid
etc etc

Thats just for what the wires your get are then there is HOW much of each you can get, what buyers you can find, if you want to strip/granulate/process them yourself or sell as you get them.... logistics (of getting the wires from everyone on the platform + getting them to a seller).... lots and lots to think about. Good luck!

We'll be sure to keep you updated with any significant progress.

You've hit the nail on the head, it's fascinating how in depth you can go with cables. I've been digging into the variables you listed over the past couple of weeks actually, there's such differentiation with the cables out there. Even once you've got the variables on lock down, we then have to consider the granulation and selling process. Lots to learn! We're tempted to start off by finding a company with a granulator and pay them a fee to granulate the cables we collect. That way we'll be able to concentrate on getting the platform right and increasing the collection quantities before committing to a huge financial burden of having our own machine.

Originally Posted by kss

This is an interesting idea, but my assumption is that no granulator would want to get paid a "fee" and then return the product to you. They would probably just want to buy the product off you as is and granulate it themselves, since that is their business. Think about it, if you are a granulator you would rather just buy the product to be granulated, so that you then have full control on the sell side to your suppliers.... I wouldn't think they would granulate and give back the product you give them unless your fee you paid them was a lot higher than what they could get just buying the material off you like they do from others and then sending it off to their buyers.

Also consider, if they are a granulator, and you were to want your stuff granulated and returned after granulation, you would essentially have to rent out the entire granulator since how they normally work is just getting a bunch of stuff from multiple places, and then running it all-together through the granualtor. To be able to run your stuff exclusively to return just your stuff, you would have to have enough volume to fully occupy their granulating system, or they would be loosing money (by not granulating the other material they have from others).... My guess is you will either have to buy/setup your own granulating facility, or just middle-man between your end users, and a granulator. That is essentially what most scrap yards do anyway.... buy a bunch from a bunch of people, and sell in volume as-is to a processor for a profit.... it sounds like you are essentially doing the same thing, just instead of a person going to a scrapyard, they might submit the material to your app/platform instead.....


edit: now that im re-reading your post, you may have just meant reselling to a granulator, and not nessicarily having them granulate and return the processed material to you to resell, if thats what you meant, ignore my post lol. that is what I would recommend, jsut selling to someone setup to process it at least until you have the volume where you could jsutify the expense of processing yourself

Apologies for the delayed response.

You're right, it's probably too idealistic to assume that granulators would happily take in and return foreign material, not without wanting a significant fee anyway. I guess my thought came down to trying to find ways to minimise risk but sometimes in business, especially with new ventures, you have to throw yourself at something and just go for it. We're currently working on researching (and soon to be contacting) different buyers for both the PVC regrind and the copper granules along with the sourcing of a trustworthy and reliable machine. The business plan and market analysis is being written by a professional so we're making steady progress!