ending E-Scrap

I've been scrapping a few months now, and starting to learn the ropes a little. I've learned a lot from reading threads on here, but i believe i have decided to stop scrapping ewaste and focus just on metal. Around here, in North Alabama, there are no ewaste facilities. Everything that i collect is going to have to be shipped off, and the shipping alone will eat up my profits. Mostly what i get are TV and just low grade stuff. Without shipping it off by the ton, i can afford to keep doing it and im not equipped to handle that much ewaste. I look at scrapping like anything else, focus on one thing, get really good at that. Then maybe in the future start branching off to other things like ewaste and such. For now i am going to focus just on metal.

Everybody has got to figure out what works for them. I keep saying - Just because it works for me doesn't mean it will for someone else.

Well on the ewaste front I believe you may be mistaken but you need to make that call. Knowing what is worth shipping and what is not will make you money. If you get over $3/lb and shipping is less than $0.50/ lb that is better than most everything else you can collect. I work the ewaste in with the rest of the stuff I get and its profitable for me. I think you should spend more time reading and trying out what works best for you. Mike.

ps the optimal weight to send to Ewasted is up to 65lbs(His is the company I send most of my stuff to). Mike

Ewaste has the most upside in my opinion.....Since I have been strictly doing ewaste I have sold over 10,000 in used electronics on Ebay alone.......Several buyers here u can trust (Ewasted, Parttime Scrapper, ROK, AND philly I have worked with)....Anyway just my .02 cents worth

Do what's best for you and your family bro. Only you govern your own rules

escrap is good supplemental income, and is alot easier to handle than shred, a 70 pound box is the most i have to lift

You have to do what ever works best for you. If the metals are there for you to make money on and the e-waste isn't then go with the metals and you'll do fine. I started out with just metal and did good but now have switched to mostly e-waste and I'm doing better. But I also have a local e-waste buyer that pays well on all grades of boards, that makes things alot easier. Good luck with whatever you do.

I thought I was going to focus on e-scrap when I started this, but steel is so darn easy to find around here and I just can't leave it laying. Every week I'm taking 400 or 500 pounds in. Sure that's 'only' 35 or 40 bucks, but it's 35 or 40 found dollars. Do that every week & it starts to add up. Throw in a non-ferrous run that's usually worth 200 to 300 every month and I can darn near make my house note every month off of metal & metal containing items that people throw away.... and I'm really not even trying all that hard. I can't tell you how many TVs I've driven past lately now that I fully understand what a PITA getting rid of too many tubes can be. I only stop for Trinitrons now. Plus I've got about 100 pounds of pcbs mid-grade on up along with various other chips, pins, & other components that I've stockpiled, hoping to take to a buyer here in DFW that doesn't only do business with big-timers.

I'm not quitting my day job, by any means, and I'm not going to do just one avenue of scrapping and ignore the rest. I'll take what I find & monetize it the best I can.

dude there is a company in Alabama lol Alabama Electronics Recyclers Inc. look them up call them ask them if they will buy your highgrade boards tell them you got about 40 lbs (even if you don't have that much) see what they say, they will most likely want to buy all your e-waste. but don't pass up the easiest money ever.

As one of the buyers on the forum, I spend a lot of my time working with new scrappers. One thing that I have noted is that many new scrappers do not factor shipping into the equation. When someone ships me a 60 pound box of power supplies that I pay 33 cents a pound for and they paid 40 cents a pound to ship it, I wonder why it did not go to their local yard. While stripping a TV might not be highly profitable, there are lots of easily found high value items in ewaste. Cell phones, laptops and many boards are all over $5 a pound. Maybe if no one in your area does ewaste, maybe you could buy from your scrap yards. What do they do with their stuff? One of my suppliers is buying from junk yards, scrap yards, and on craigs list. He has been doing it less than 6 months and brings me at least $5000 a week and that is without any of his metal such as steel or alum. That is just his boards, laptops, etc.

Around here eveerybody and their brother is scrapping. You have to be prowling constantly to score ferrous and you may occasionally get some copper - mostly in the form of power cords. I found that doing that was costing me more than I was making. Ewaste- what little of it I can get around here - is generally profitable for the amount of money I have to put into getting it.

When I started doing e-waste - no one in my town was buying it either. I started going around to owners of computer repair shops asking to buy their ewaste. One of the owners knew the owner of a scrapyard and got him thinking about ewaste and now they buy it. You might consider approaching your local yard and showing them how you can both make money.

I don't turn anything down except for very large items that needs a trailer, Appliances are fair game.

I buy sorted material from a gentleman who breaks down e-waste.

In Northern California there are not many people who recycle e-waste, and those that do either pay out really slow, are too far away, or downright rip you off. So what he does is breaks off the material I purchase from him, the gold fingers, CPUs, high value chips and components, etc. He sells that material to me and makes a good profit off that, then he waits until he accumulates enough e-waste to make it cost effective to truck it to the nearest place to process.

It works for him, might work for you as well.

Scott

do what works for you

im making about $50 hour sorting and cleaning/processing boards and connectors, piles of gold are stacking up all around me, processed 20 pounds of connectors for 4 pounds of gold plated metal it took about 2 hours, the best thing is i can still sell the connectors as connectors so it really didnt cost me anything to make $300

See the biggest problem i have is most of the ewaste i get is TV and stereo. I'll get a computer every now and then, but mostly just low grade TV boards. I guess i could pull different components off those boards and sell them by the lb,but then I'm stuck with what's left of the low grade boards. I'll keep researching the best way to make a profit on these boards and go from there.

I would have to agree with everone else you have to do what works for you however I strictly deal with ewaste. I've learned here in my location you have to be creative what may not work for you now can turn into a main stream of income. Its very competitive here in Texas. If there are no buyers locally then that means the market is yours (material wise that is) sounds like you may need to aaccumlate buying power,run ads,etc. to turn a respectable profit. All of that while also doing what works ie. metals who knows just my .02

I see the OP is basically talking about TV boards Low grade - so lots of talk about computer boards wile good info does not offer the inspiration to stay with TV's. See even in my upstate community yards are consistent and yards pay you some thing for any board .15 at least - so what the heck & My yard allows me to chop up to take up lets space. Nothing like selling some chopped up stuff that gets little scrutiny. I keep plastic to a minimum as no weight and is a red flag of a less pure Copper bearing load . You know some times when you clean the copper off the steel from the copper yolk, you can't get all copper off, I go CB on that - A motor or 2 for visual effect (gotta throw the dog a bone ) next thing you know you have 300 lb copper B.
You know when you goto the store to buy things it's like this 12.99 4.99 20.89 13.99 2.00 32.00 .- then you gotta pay a c note
For me Copper Bering represents a little of a this - little of that - 300 lb short - 50 LB AL - some mix - a pinch of CU - and then I am the recipient of a C note . Long Live TV boards there GOOD !! Each and every TV and computer crt I see I take .Finally though on the street it is less lately but some still show up .

PS
I don't sell my computers boards to the yards and yet to sell them at all - one day I'll sell them

After a lot of thought and a lot more research, I've decided to still go with Escrap. No local competition, which is a plus, and according to my research a little more profitable. Don't get me wrong, I'm still going to collect steel and such. Just going to keep the Escrap and try to focus more on it. Plan on advertising a lot than i am and hope i can start to turn my little venture into a profitable business. Thanks for all the input

If ya cant find a yard to buy low grade boards ( same problem here ) Save them up if possible because the way I see it, Someone one day in the future is going to buy them