Mountain of E-waste found

I was driving through my local scrap yard and in the back i spot a small mountain of various computers and parts. The owner is not doing anything with it and since I am friends with him I asked if I could have something to do with it. He replied "yeah, you tell me how we can both benefit". Less than one block away is the only scrap yard in town that takes e-waste and pays ok to low end prices. Trying to decide what to offer him. I was looking into shipping the materials but that is expensive from Kansas and could probably make the same amount and maybe more if i take to the nearby scrap yard.
Any ideas on how I should approach this would be appreciated. It is his material but it would be my labor, 50/50 fair? He paid somewhere around .15 cents/lb or less for his towers. Not sure if I should even bother with it.

i'd take a cordless out there and start ripping boards out of it, hard drives, cd/dvd and power supplies too, but the main boards, CPUs and RAM are the biggest money if time is short

if either of you have a box truck or big enough trailer load that sucker up and haul it to a better paying buyer, some buyers even get you discounted rates for trucking less than trailer loads(several pallets etc)

I have been looking into the buyers on here. Seen good referals to buyers in Texas and Arkansas but that is still a long drive.

Your shortest shipping would be to Texas. Offer him $ .20-.22 a lb no more than .25 a lb and you'll still come out ok.

E- Scrap prices at the nearby yard Per Pound

Printers 0.75
General/Misc. Electronics 0.75
Motherboards 1.50
High Grade Boards 1.80
Memory 7.50
CD/Floppy Drives .10
Power Supplies w/ Wire .25
Power Supplies NO WIRE .20
Computer Cables .60
Computer Wire .35
Computer CPU HIGH Grade $25-85
Computer CPU LOW Grade $4-$8
Hard Drives .60
UPS System (complete) .15 Per Pound

Those prices are pretty low. You can get much better prices from a buyer on here. I would tell the guy that you will pay him .20/lb and you will bring him the shred steel back after you strip them along with the aluminum from heat sinks and stuff. Thats a pretty sweet deal for owners because they make money on both sides of the deal and then you do also. from the things that are higher value. But I would ship the stuff to a buyer on here. I pay about .38/lb per shipping but would make over $3 more than the local offer from the scrapyard you posted.

If you spend the time to do the research on here you can turn a pretty easy profit on that stuff. Ewasted's prices are nearly double or triple on the motherboards and RAM.

most buyers on here are near $4 on motherboards. If you guys go in 50/50 and use trucking service(i've seen em get darn good prices on shipping pallets) you'll both make more than $150 lb motherboards. If one of you has a box truck, fill it up with boards and make an overnight road trip, I can't see either of you being any less than happy with the payout. Just go out there and get to work on it, if your friend is really a friend, and you both share (50/50 somehow, i.e his stuff/your knowhow, etc). in the deal, I don't see how either of you can loose either. Do work it out up front though, don't guess what he's thinking, don't guess he knows your thoughts either, even write it down, up front, to help keep a friendship a friendship

Were I in your shoes, I would offer him a 50-50 split. However, I would strip the stuff on the spot. Only haul away the really good money making material and the plastics (if you have a buyer for it), ship the boards, ram, cpu, disc drives, hard drives and finger cards to a SMF buyer, scrap the wire, aluminum, copper, electric motors, transformers etc at his yard, using his scales and leave all of the ferrous material for him to make extra money on.

That is what I would do. Just my $.02

I wish you the best of luck.

Will be meeting with the owner of the ewaste this week to talk about the details but he said he is ready for me to take over the pile. Found a driver that has a big horse trailer and is willing to drive as far as Texas for me. I will post back with what happens. Now i need to go and buy a new cordless drill.

cool man, good luck!

Actually I believe an LTL(less than trailer, i.e. a pallet or a dozen) load will prove cheaper than enlisting a friend with a trailer to drive that far, much less chance too of things going wrong

I have used a little Makita cordless screwdriver for the last few years. I highly recommend it for tearing down e-waste. With the right bits this little guy will rip apart anything from a CD player to a server..I have a bigger "drill type"one also. I find myself using the smaller one a lot more than bigger one due to size. It is very handy for getting in small spots. If your interested The model number is td020dsew. They are an impact screwdriver and have plenty of power to tackle any e-waste you throw in front of if!!!
No, I do not work for Makita, I just like there tools. When it brakes, I am buying another one.
Happy Scrapping!!!

A long bit will prove better use for getting in tight spots than any name brand.

.75 per pound for printers?!? am I the only one that is seeing this??? It has to be .75 per printer.. no way is it per lb.

check the buyers section I use one guy havent been able to beat his over all system and many have tried. shipping can be as low as .10 per lb. to mentor Oh. and no up front shipping charge. just my .02

Feel free to contact either myself or Parttimescrapper if you are interested in selling that E-scrap. We have been buying locally and from the surrounding states for some time now.

Met with owner of the escrap today and he wants to go 50/50 on all that I make. I'll start tearing down everything this weekend. It might be awhile before I start unloading since I will be taking it all apart myself and only one or two days a week. Hey wanna say thanks for all the helpful info posted and the price lists that people have sent, it will help my buyer search once I am ready.

Not an advertisement but coming from someone in "A surrounding state that has worked with RecycleThis and PartTimeScrapper give them a call. the worst you will be out is a phone call and you could miss a really fun time that could pay well! JMHO KrazyJ

Since your are local, I would be glad to meet with you & let you know what I know about grading & which buyers I would use.

they say 50% of something is a lot better than 100% of nothing ; ) and like Parrot said, you'll find that 6 inch phillips bit near vital for ease of disassembly there. I'd go for the boards (including, in time, the hard drive and CD/DVD boards will be worth removing) but leave the power supplies(untouched) in a separate stack from the shred, and when they begin to make a size-able stack discuss their copper content with the yard owner, maybe he can get a better price than shred, and you'll share in that pile too, Unless! you both decide a road trip(the only other way you'll find them worth transport)

I wish I could get .75 lb or even .75 per printer in my area. Better yet the .75 for general would be great also. I get a ton of VCR, Radio's, TVs, etc. that have low grade boards in them. I mostly just pull copper out when I have time and the rest is trash. None of the local yards will take ewaste of any sort. Printers/monitors I can get all day long for free from people if had a good place to recycle them.

i'm so tired of printers. i took some for shred the other day because i cant stand breaking them down anymore.

i literally have a retaining wall in my back yard built of printers instead of stone. I think i could stop a flood with those things

Correction on printer price they are $0.075 per pound which is the same price they pay for shred.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MetalEarthRecycling

Correction on printer price they are $0.075 per pound which is the same price they pay for shred.

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Will they still honor the previous price for loads we've already shipped??

If you still have them, I'd be interested in working a deal with you on the hard drives; or, if you're scrapping them out, on the magnets and backing plates out of them. I'm Okla. and could come get them after the 1st. I okay'd if for other members to e-mail me; so, I'm hoping that you can just click on my user name. :)

wow! i hope i didn't scare him off with that last remark lol ; )

he is your friend, and a valuable businesses contact. 50/50 is the way to go. you dont havde to go to 100 places to get them, and you dont have to load the shred and drive to the yard.

talk to the buyers in the buyers section, they are very helpful, and they can get you dicounts on shipping. you should be able to get roughly DOUBLE what the local ewaste buyer is offering after paying for shipping.

hard drives most likely wont be worth shippingafter you take the boards off the back, but definately take them off. depending on how much total weight they might be worth shipping, but you need to compare buyers price-shipping cost to what the yard will get for dirty aluminum. make sure you put them in the dirty alum pile for your friend.

make sure you take the ram and cpu's off the boards in several posts it is stated that, as a general rule, anything on a board that is noy soldered should come off.

again, talk to the buyers

I broke down somewhere around 100 desktops so far. stockpiling most of it and separating everything. I have sent off one 50lb box of motherboards and gold finger cards to a reputable buyer from this site. Still waiting on the check, but everything is going good and the owner of the computers just told me he has another semi trailor full of computers for me to take over. If there just wasnt so many monitors, noone takes them around here. Still trying to find out how to get rid of them properly for him without costing $$.

price em like you did the printers! ; ) I'd almost bet the goodwill/dell take was gov't sponsored, yep, our tax dollars behind it, but that might be a good place to look either way ?

Lemme know if u want to do some business im only 2.5hrs away to haul. Or shipping to me on something box orbpallet 1-2K LBS is around 70-80$ from kc to omaha