taking from yards shred pile??

Do any of you do this? While unloading a load of course, not just showing up and picking through the pile. Essentially you're trading your scrap for other things in the scrap pile, and whatever you take stays on your truck when you go back over the scale so no ones losing money. I haven't done this at all by the way, but im gonna be taking a big load in soon and I was considering it. Id only be taking e-waste. Thoughts on this? Ive also heard of people taking copper wire or aluminum from the shred and turning it in?

With the owner's knowledge?

I've never done it but I guess you could ask the owner if it's ok or just do it and see what happens.

Well that's a cardinal sin, when I had my yard if some one asked me for say a kids bike, or a barbecue grill I would have no problem letting them take something that they had a use for, but taking copper or aluminum out of the yard in place of the shred weight is a no no. I would ban you from coming back to my yard. What do you think the yard boss or owner of the yard would say to you if you asked him. Don't Embarrass Your Self.

all the yards around here consider that stealing...i have seen folks do it and get by with it...my main yard will warn you the 1st time you do it, after that if they catch you taking things they will ban you from the yard...

my yard will sale you anything from the shred pile for 30 cents per pound...it usually ends up being even cheaper than that if you buy a couple hundred pounds they drop the price to 15 to 20 cents per pound...i think that is a great deal...

i would just ask the yard how much they will charge you to buy there shred...you may be surprised at there answer

I asked the guy today when i took my load of scrap in. He said that its not allowed, however you can purchase things from the "pile" for a few bucks more than scrap value. Never done it, but highly considered it because i see so many **** lawn mowers in there, lol. I could see why you cant do that, some new scrappers are not to smart when it comes to scrapping. An example would be someone dumping 10 grills. Most scrappers know the lid and base are cast aluminum, but they throw them in steel. Someone comes buy and dumps off the steel, and takes the grills with aluminum for half the weight of the steel they dumped. They made profit from the steel and now they have to repay for this time dumping aluminum. Hope i explained that well, but thats the general reason why they dont allow that.

I tried to buy a drum dolly last week. They were having none of it.

I know that my yard doesn't allow it as they have people that buy certain material as more then light iron like lawnmowers, air conditioners, bikes, computers. It kills me to see that stuff in light iron!!! Also the people watching the pile have first dibs on all valuables like copper and wire.

Thanks guys for clearing that up. I was pretty sure it wasn't allowed, but I was reading some old threads and seen people mention that they got things out of the shred pile. There's a small yard down the street from me and I talked to the owner about buying things from the shred pile, he said they sell for.20 lb, but they keep the computers. I'm gonna talk to someone at the bigger yard that I go to and see about getting computers from the shred pile.

I sell to 3 different yards and I know one yard absolutely will NOT sell from their lot. I think it's also related to liability as they don't want people climbing around with all the machinery in operation. I was there one day when a gal came in looking for a wheel rim for a fire ring and they said "NO". My regular yard lets me take anything and put it on the trailer and weigh it back across with my empty weight. I don't even ask to take precious metals but did take an air compressor one day (motor and all), fixed the leaks and it works perfect. That yard doesn't take e-waste so any computer just goes to shred.

If I was one of those you was looking at about buying from a scrap yard - that was a special case. I bought electronic/computer stuff and HE called ME offering to sell the stuff. No yard I know of would sell aluminum and copper off a shred pile -- they'd process it, themselves.

My yard will trade you pound for pound or for cash value if you ask them FIRST.

the best thing about my yard is that they are not interested in breaking down anything in the shred pile. the way they see it, they bought it at shred price so they will sell it at shred price..dont get me wrong there is a guy that watches the shred pile 90 percent of the time, and he will throw clean shot iron , copper, or aluminum to the side when he sees it thrown out..the most breaking down he will do is cutting a heavy cord from a dryer or other electric item with a heavy cord ...

i have saw them throw large air conditioner units right in there compacter..i have spoke with the owner about buying things like motors and air conditioners..he said im welcome to them for 30 cents per pound, only thing is i would have to buy them whole , i need to do some figuring to see which things i can profit from at that price...

he is fine with me stripping computers and other items with circuit boards, as long as im not cutting cords off and stripping copper aluminum coils, and stuff like that im fine..i am doing really well they even save the towers for me now..i recomend to everyone to contact there yards and at least see what they will let you do..you may be surprised

WHY would a yard knowingly let someone put an item they already paid for from other scrappers onto an empty truck/trailer and pay for it again? They are buying the same item twice and the second person is making free money basically.

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Originally Posted by newattitude

WHY would a yard knowingly let someone put an item they already paid for from other scrappers onto an empty truck/trailer and pay for it again? They are buying the same item twice and the second person is making free money basically.

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In theory the scrapper would enter the yard with a full load of shred, get weighed, dump the load of shred and put some items from the shred pile on their truck, and then get weighed again. So, the scrap yard and scrapper would just be trading shred for shred, not the scrap yard paying for shred twice. The scrapper in theory then goes and breaks down the shred into individual metals and sells it back to the yard. The yard may do better on the individual metals then shred and make money on the trade in the long run, just like the scrapper would too. Win, Win.

one yard I go to saves certain things for me(bikes, bike parts, yard art stuff, computers etc) the other will trade weight for weight of the same type of metal only.

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Originally Posted by Caveman

In theory the scrapper would enter the yard with a full load of shred, get weighed, dump the load of shred and put some items from the shred pile on their truck, and then get weighed again. So, the scrap yard and scrapper would just be trading shred for shred, not the scrap yard paying for shred twice. The scrapper in theory then goes and breaks down the shred into individual metals and sells it back to the yard. The yard may do better on the individual metals then shred and make money on the trade in the long run, just like the scrapper would too. Win, Win.

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So the yard would deduct the items taken off of the weight from the first load then? Ok, I misunderstood the OP then.

my brother uses a yard where if he sees something he likes in the pile they have no problem letting him take it out. I'm pretty sure he scored an old Milwaukee metal tool case the other day. However, if he tried to take copper or aluminum i do not think that would fly at all. I'm sure yards makes good money by the non-ferrous items that end up in the shred pile, buy low sell high theory, and I'm sure the yard would rather see that nice profit in their pocket rather than yours. But it all depends on the yard i suppose, cant hurt by asking tho

it is a business for profit. with out asking, you would be stealing the profit from the yard. just my .02