So...looking back... - Page 2

Just wondering how it's working out for the OP.

Originally Posted by 520

I have been buying more computers and servers than I can process working full time on them. When they run out I'll still have a bunch to scrap.

Have people been having a hard time finding computers to scrap?

No problem getting them. Now to start breaking them down. Also lots of printers around too.

Of course ... every situation is different. What's profitable in one area might not be profitable in another.

I know it's being kind of a Debbie Downer but i've seen a lot of ewaste ventures go southbound. There aren't many that survive beyond the five year mark. For that matter ....the same can be said of most business ventures.Business is risky and the odds generally aren't in your favor.

If you look back at the old threads ... there are so many members that aren't here anymore.

Scrapping is generally a thin margin thing so you have to manage carefully in order to survive.

Maybe a bit of a derail, but i'm wondering how others operate.

Do you just dive right in and charge forward ?

Do you carefully track your time, all operating costs,shipping, and taxes ? How do your true operating costs mesh up against your gross income ?

See ... the trend is moving toward less scrap value being recovered.

For example: An older computer might have a 386 gold rich processor, a decent lg socket mobo, and three or more finger cards, memory, and nice HDD and CD boards. A newer tower might only have a laptop MOBO and a few sticks of ram.

Pretty slim pickin's with the newer stuff. Most especially with tablets & cell phones.

Is there a thing going on where your operating expenses are going up and your net profits are trending down ?

That would be a thing to watch for. You could end up running in the red and not discover it for a couple of years if you aren't managing the business carefully. This happens all the time.

Originally Posted by hills

Of course ... every situation is different. What's profitable in one area might not be profitable in another.

I know it's being kind of a Debbie Downer but i've seen a lot of ewaste ventures go southbound. There aren't many that survive beyond the five year mark. For that matter ....the same can be said of most business ventures.Business is risky and the odds generally aren't in your favor.

If you look back at the old threads ... there are so many members that aren't here anymore.

Scrapping is generally a thin margin thing so you have to manage carefully in order to survive.

Maybe a bit of a derail, but i'm wondering how others operate.

Do you just dive right in and charge forward ?

Do you carefully track your time, all operating costs,shipping, and taxes ? How do your true operating costs mesh up against your gross income ?

See ... the trend is moving toward less scrap value being recovered.

For example: An older computer might have a 386 gold rich processor, a decent lg socket mobo, and three or more finger cards, memory, and nice HDD and CD boards. A newer tower might only have a laptop MOBO and a few sticks of ram.

Pretty slim pickin's with the newer stuff. Most especially with tablets & cell phones.

Is there a thing going on where your operating expenses are going up and your net profits are trending down ?

That would be a thing to watch for. You could end up running in the red and not discover it for a couple of years if you aren't managing the business carefully. This happens all the time.

As long as anyone is basing their value on scrap prices(the lowest price you can possibly get for the item) there will always be slim margins. For example, you can scrap a truck and get $300 at most or you can sell the truck and get $2,000-$3,000. One has a slim margin while the other is clearly the better option. While the newer computers and other electronics have less scrap value they make up for it by having a better resale value.

Originally Posted by hills

Of course ... every situation is different. What's profitable in one area might not be profitable in another.

I know it's being kind of a Debbie Downer but i've seen a lot of ewaste ventures go southbound. There aren't many that survive beyond the five year mark. For that matter ....the same can be said of most business ventures.Business is risky and the odds generally aren't in your favor.
See ... the trend is moving toward less scrap value being recovered.
Pretty slim pickin's with the newer stuff. Most especially with tablets & cell phones.
Is there a thing going on where your operating expenses are going up and your net profits are trending down ?

A lot of small refiners are gone now. It's more difficult to deal with specialized scrap, especially low grade boards and plastics !

Just a reminder, shipping rates are going up next year !

I've sold a working computer with a 75 mzH processor and windows 98 for $25 ...

I've considered a variety of scrap fronts. The reality is, ewaste turned into the least long term viable. Several factors came into play. Materials worth reclaiming are shrinking. Fewer towers. Tinier boards. More stuff that is harder to recover. The reality is, you have to not only have volume but the machinery ($$$$$$$) to recover all of it. It's easy now. It won't be in the future with the changes occurring in tech. The industry is consolidating faster than most. Big corporations have investors ready to buy up anything and everything with any volume OR beat it away from you. There was a guy not far from me who was getting a couple truckloads a week who sold to someone else recently. I have yet to talk to him in person, but he went from rapidly expanding on volume to perhaps either taking the money and running or seeing the writing on the wall...I don't know which yet. We have two other places in town. They have multiple employees. Both charge for their services. There has become a two tier system...those who buy the broken down stuff and make their money reselling it, and those who take it all and deal with negative value items that come along with that by taking it all in for free...and in many cases charging to do pickups.

There will be materials there, but the materials will always be changing down the road. And the amount of value in those things you do get will be less. What we see in five and ten years will be much different than today in many ways. There will be a few who make a go of it, and more consolidation. Organizations will keep coming up with new buzzwords and expensive certifications. If you can do ewaste where you are, I say do it, but look at is as not a long term viable plan or one that is extra money to retire sooner.

Originally Posted by mikeinreco

Does anyone refurbish these older units full time...........basically anything that will accept a Core 2 Quad or better has resale value.........Anything less than that I'd say scrap it.......What I have is a complete and utter disaster!!!!..........I have parts everywhere and most of it is not worth the postage to put in an envelope but if I can build a computer out of it someone will buy it (eventually).........That is the problem with refurb.........I have to have multiple of the same units on hand to use for parts etc.........Getting free scrap computers at least in my area is not feasible.........Good luck to all as this thread brings up some interesting ideas but we all know that the Windows 7 gravy train is about to run out

Full time no but I do it consistently. My biggest success isnjust upgrading the ram, installing a wireless card (if necessary), putting in a larger hard drive then installing Ubuntu on it which will run lighter and faster on an old machine and make it good for anything short of gaming or other super heavy graphics/processing computing. Sell the towers for a minimum of $30 when I do that and sell them reasonably quick depending what all I do to them.

Can't stress enough the returns gained from unscrapping materials that are brought in. A $1.35/lb scrap mobo is all of a sudden worth $150 as a refurbished gaming board after replacing a single bad chip that takes about $20 for the chip (depending) and 10-15 minutes to desolder and replace. The repair money will stay even if your scrapping services decline.

The old computers had multiple cards inside including video cards, large CPUs with full sized boards, HDs made of solid aluminum, circuit boards on the CDROM and/or DVD drive etc plus RAM sticks. New machines have small boards with everything built in so no cards, possible small SSD drives nobody wants, and the optical drive is like a laptop drive worthless. The supply of older machines must be out of the recycling stream bu now (in any appreciable quantity anyway). Servers are the last gasp in recycling profit wise and there will be less and less of those with 64 core chips coming out hosting many virtual machines in 1 server.

Referbing machines isn't as profitable since new machines got so cheap and people tend to want laptops over desktops anyway. Finding large working hard drives also cuts into profits and SSD's will lose you money if you have to buy them. So ewaste people need massive quantities of material or don't bother.