Newbie needs some help

Hey everyone!

My name is Nolan and I've been lurking on the site a couple days now. I'm a young gun that is just getting into scrapping. I recently became unemployed and since I was a teen I've wanted to work for myself and not have a boss, so basically I need a few pointers, please help and thank you.

1) I'm used to making between 30-40k a year, is this possible scrapping with a whole plethora of tools and a truck?

2) I have tons of old monitors/tv's and pc towers, as well as many friends telling me they'll give me their old ones so right now I have 5 monitors/tv's, 4 towers, and 2 broken xbox 360's. If my friends ain't ****ting me i should have about 15-20 of each, excluding the 360's by weeks end.



3) If someone would please help me make a list of the easiest but most profitable things to take out are I would appreciate it. As I said I am recently unemployed so i have time to dismantle things but don't want to un-solder anything really unless it's big bucks. I have years of experience with electronics and tools (2 years of electronics classes, many home built computers, fixed laptops, etc.) so shouldn't be too bad for me to jump into this.

4) Scrapping doesn't seen to be too big around here, I am withing 50 mile radius of 3 cities over populations of 200k, and quite a few cities over 5k around here too. Just looking on craigslist I see hundreds of old tvs and computers in the free section if i pick em up and also a hotel just remodeled and has 150 tvs sitting out back they've had for a couple days and no one has picked em up.

So if you can tell i'm looking to get into e-waste ASAP, so a list of the valuables to take out of these things would be awesome. I just went to the recycle place i've used for cans and they pay $3 for copper, $2.50/lb for insulated wire. Didn't check if they take low/high grade boards.

I will also be looking into other places that take tv's/monitors whole, if they'll give me around $10 for em I would rather do that i think to flip n make a quick buck. or is it that big of a difference to tear the crap(hidden treasures) apart and sell separate.

Bonus Question! when I take the degassing cable off the back of tv's/monitors do i have to separate it from the plastic n stuff its wrapped within or will most yards buy the whole unit(as I know from experience plastic burns before metal does!)?

Welcome aboard. Most (if not all) of the answers to your questions are in the archives. Search feature is your friend.

yeah thanks for the welcome and the advice. I have been searching the last couple days, all i'm seeing is how to's. I can take the stuff apart i just want to know prices as whole units v scrapped out i guess.

Example: You can get $10 for a monitor just about anywhere but if you take out w,x,y,and z you can turn that same monitor into $25.

I guess I should have specified.

a) right now I am filling up 5GAL buckets and trash cans with
1) insulated wire
2) miscellaneous boards (i can't tell difference between high/low grade, also does memory (RAM) go into this pile? should i take aluminum/copper heat sinks off? or does that devalue the board?)
3) copper
4) scrap metals
5) plastics
6) glass

is there anything i'm leaving out i should grab off these things? also is there general pricing for these things? As stated Around here i can get $3/lb for copper#2 and $2.5/lb for insulated wire. Or is it just take my piles of crap to the scrap yard and see what they will/wont buy and for how much, learn as I go type thing?

you guys just seem much more knowledgeable so I guess i was trying to get a few pointers to avoid a year of face-palms and know more about this stuff the easy way lol.

Thanks M88, i know there is tons of info on the site, i have looked through a good chunk of posts over the last couple days already. I am not looking for "easy money" just the easiest way to maximize my gains per unit, so apologies if i came off that way.

Example: is it worth while to
A) take a monitor to a place for like .20-.30/lb for the whole unit (these places are rare)
B) take of copper, board and ins wire and sell those
C) take off all above plus save plastic and take it in after i have a large quantity, and seperate the glass and lead and recycle them seperate as well.

obviously the first one would be easiest, but the last one i would make most money if im not mistaken. I have all the time in the word right now and love learning new skills and i think it would be fun to do this for a while if i can pay the bills with it.

thanks for linking those also, im ashamed to admit i did see the monitor one you posted, but only read about a third the way threw and looked at the pretty pictures, ha

Yep alot of your questions have been answered here on the forum. Its really going to depend on who your selling to as to what they will take and if it worth your time.

Did you find a better place to sell your stuff Easy? Looking forward to your new pricing.

thanks guys, I didnt know that yards sold to bigger yards and there is a whole chain. I will keep calling around and find the closest "king" yard that will buy most of the stuff I will be extracting.

I will try and log my hours disassembling, and keep separate piles and haul in a mini-load on Monday and see approximately what i'm getting per hour when it comes to breaking down ewaste. I called a yard today and just for the copper, ins wire, and scrap metal I woulda got about $26/hr for what I did today, so i guess the trick would be to get enough stuff coming in to keep me busy enough to make a fair weekly/monthly amount.

can anyone tell me the difference between #1 and #2 copper? the copper im getting out of the back of crts looks pretty clean, some of it is a little sticky from tape, is this still clean enough for #1?

also the boards on monitors seem low grade to me, are these worth anything? or will a couple hours calling around be my only answer?

At my yard they pay #2 regardless of its color...they say its not big enough to be #1