Question about prices on first load of scrap

So... I've been putting together my first real load of scrap this week. I've spent about 6 hours so far in the woods at an old metal dump site and have quite a bit of junk to show for it. I'm trying to get the max weight because most of it is mixed steel/iron. I called two yards around here and one said I'd get 7 cents per pound for "miscellaneous metal." Another said they would pay $10.72 per 100lbs of steel, which would be 10.7 cents per pound. Here's my question: Is "steel" different from mixed metal? I assume it is. I told the 10.7 cents guy what I had (lawn mowers, farm equip, rusted barrels and steel buckets, thick cast iron stovetops, etc) and he still said it was $10.72 per 100lbs. Is he going to wait until I get to the yard to say, "Oh, wait, you have mixed metal, that's actually MUCH less..." or do you think he's being honest about what they will pay?

Also, I only have two old lawn mowers, so would it be worth it to rip out the engines and do them as aluminum?

How do the prices I mentioned sound to you guys? Are they decent? I figure if I can get 2,000lbs x .07 = $140, it will be worth the hours I have already put in (probably come in at around $14/hr for me minus gas to get to the yard and back, which will be $12).

Any feedback would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Also, I only have two old lawn mowers, so would it be worth it to rip out the engines and do them as aluminum?


I take lawn mower engine apart... i have a electric and battery powered impact gun and cordless drill... they come apart fairly easily... and I even hand onto a few of the good parts too... if it's something like a lawn tractor motor, if the starter is still good, I will keep it in case i get a project mower that needs a part... same as the recoil starter... i hang on to a couple of those too....

I am located in Virginia. Yeah, $140 is a bit lower than what I expected. I just found another metal dump on my land, so I'm trying to wait a bit and make the load bigger than one ton if possible. I don't know how much is at this new site, though, becuase most of it is under a bunch of leaves. I estimate it's probably another 500-1000 pounds of rusted steel frames and sheet metal.

I also have a bunch of other stuff that needs to go, so ideally I would love to have this load weight two tons, but I just don't know if I have that much metal at this new site. We'll see. I just got a lock on another site, though, and this one may be a big ticket. It was a farm for over 100 years and they have this place called "the parts departement" where my great grandfather threw all of his scrap and unusable equipment. There could be upwards of 15 tons of old iron and steel out there. I can't wait to check it out. If I could do 2,500 - 4,000lb loads every time the time/gas/money would work out well I think.

Thanks for all of your input, guys.

Oh yeah, and how do you guys get big weight items onto your trucks or trailers? Do you think it would be a good idea for me to buy a winch and use that to drag them onto a trailer? I was thinking just a hand-crank winch rated at 600-1000 or something like that. I have never used one, though, so I don't know how well it would work for things that aren't in good shape and can't roll. It probably wouldn't work very well... Hmm... So, how to get this old farm crap onto my trailer.... I need a forklift. hahaha.

That sounds good. I think anything under $130 would be a good investment because I can use it for my landscaping business as well. There are plenty of times I want to pull something big on the trailer and have to have three or four guys help me. Oh yeah, and my second scrap site was a near bust. It looked great when I saw it the other day, but further prodding revealed that someone took a backhoe and halfway covered everything. I pulled maybe fifty pounds out of the thousand or so which is stuck beneath the dirt. I would need a bulldozer to get that crap up. haha. No dice. Found a couple pieces of copper, though, so that was good.

Originally Posted by Scrap man

Definitely take off the motors and sell them separate. You only get $140 per ton for mixed? That seems a bit low. Where are you located? Up here in NY, I get $200 per ton

Thanks for telling me that price was low. I looked around and found a place that wasn't listed in my phone book and they offered $10.50 for mixed metal. Took 1,960lbs down there today and got $206 for it. That puts me about on par with where you are in New York. I appreciate the heads up. Oh yeah, and I had the motors off and I was going to run them separate but the place was so packed and crazy that I didn't bother. It would have taken me at least another hour to get back through the line of trucks, and I might have missed the closing bell, so I just ran everything (except my copper and brass) as mixed metal.

Problem with keeping the engines that time and coming back is that the yard is about 16 miles (2 gallons) away from my place, so at $3.24 a gallon it's costing me $13 just to get to the yard and back, which makes the trip not worth it for just two lawn mower engines. As soon as I get my little 4-cylinder Ranger running again, which should be in the next day or two, I would have to agree with your idea. My big truck just eats gas like a hog and going anywhere, for almost any amount of small money, is a complicated decision. As soon as I add a few thousand pounds or a big trailer to the load, the truck starts getting 5mpg... or less I think, but it's hard to know for sure becuase it's an old tank and the gas cutoff nozzles don't work right on it. You can see the picture of my rig and just tell that it's a gas guzzler (76 Dodge d300 dually... ugh, how it burns burns burns the Premium... hahaha)

Would it be a good idea to just keep all of the engines in a pile and do them in one big trip? I think I've heard of people doing it like this. As you may know, I am a newb to scrap metal. I have done a few small loads, but now that landscaping has slowed to a virtual halt I am pursuing it a few hours a day to make extra bucks until the sun starts shining again. This forum has been an incredible help. I am very thankful for all you folks have taught me.

200 a ton is low i am working a dumb site almost identical rusty barrels old oil cans car doors and the 2 yards by me 1 is $240 a ton for this and the other is $260 a ton of this and they know what i am bringing i have brought in about 4 loads and they help me unload it and always welcome me back. i do seperate sometimes but most stuff it is easier to just lift with the forklift on the trailer and away i go

Originally Posted by CodyT

200 a ton is low i am working a dumb site almost identical rusty barrels old oil cans car doors and the 2 yards by me 1 is $240 a ton for this and the other is $260 a ton of this and they know what i am bringing i have brought in about 4 loads and they help me unload it and always welcome me back. i do seperate sometimes but most stuff it is easier to just lift with the forklift on the trailer and away i go

Cody, what state/city are these yards located near? I would love to get that kind of money for the metal. The price at some yards near me is $180/ton, and only one will offer $200 or just a bit over $200 at times. How much do steel prices change? Do people expect these prices to go up or down? I wish I knew a bit more about the theory of these prices and why they change the way they do. Is there a thread on here that discusses this? I feel like I am wasting time on a day like today when I am not scrapping, becuase I wonder if when I get back to the site next week if prices will have fallen. The yard was literally PACKED the other day, with a line 10 trucks long, all dump trucks and heavy duty flatbeds loaded to the brim with iron. Everything out here seems to be iron. I was at the yard for an hour and I saw no one doing anything else--not copper or aluminum or brass or stainless, all just cars and rusted-out junk. Is that common?

Not to lose sight of my original question: Does anyone have a prediction as to whether or not the price of steel/iron will go up or down? (I am in Virginia) 10 cents a pound is good enough to make this work, but something like 5 cents would make it tough to pay gas and overhead.

10 cents is better than what I am currently getting. I get 8 cents currently. I am calling in to my job tomorrow to burn up my last free day before it expires at the end of the month, so I plan to do some exploring and check out to see what sort of scrap yards are in a decent driving range for me to compare some prices.

HG, i am in Rochester NY the 2 scrap yards i use are http://www.becksrecycling.com/ and http://www.alpcorecycling.com/. The prices have been steadily going up i am not to sure when it peaks or anything like that but i noticed it was pretty low in the end of summer early fall like 150-180 a ton for the same stuff i get 240-260 a ton for now. I look at Iron mikes http://www.877ironmike.com/ i wish we had a place like that around here the prices are very high i don't know the comparison here yet but i do know that if his prices go up they usually go up here and he updates everyday. I would listen to Mick on that if he says it is going up around march i'd believe him. So mick you think scrap is going to go up a bunch more? Short steel here is $360 a ton right now.

Hi Mick, Could you tell me the average weight of a car ? Just trying to figure out how much profit can me made on cars.
Thanks