Can't Get Any Worse.... - Page 3

wow sledge, I'm sorry to hear all that, its not my money, time, labor, or anything and I got pissed off reading it. haha but really that is horrible. I think most if not all of you guys are up north (that's my guess) im down in the northern part of south florida all the way on the east coast and we are getting .0325 per pound so $65 a ton for shred. that price has held steady for about 2 months now. i work directly with the owner of the yard next to my trucking/recycling yard. the yards that buy from the junk yards by me are a lttle less than 100 miles away and are paying $7.50 for shred.

no one in my area buys escrap (yet, I want to learn more and take control of my area) so I cant put any input in about that

but I think it was matador that said the yard he deals with isn't paying for material, and that he would just rather it be recycled. well I really like recycling and support him for that. I like keeping things out of the landfill but unfortunately I also see in my area that when the price dropped from 6 cents per pound to 4 cents that people stopped coming in. also unfortunate is I can only assume that washers/driers/stoves, etc are still going bad but they aren't going to scrap so they must be at the landfill

Originally Posted by matador

Oh wait, this isn't the clubhouse. Well, I guess I'm trolling my own thread now....

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I literally hauled in nine computer shells. That won't justify a rolloff. I actually own four road-legal trucks, so that's not an issue. It doesn't pay gas money, though, so I haul what I can in the car, because I work within two miles of the yard anyways. A trip a day makes the yard look a little cleaner and gives me more space.

I was more than happy with the implement tires I got. New farm implement tires are about $200 a piece- $20 is a lot better! I figure that throwing a little shred their way is a nice gesture.

As some of you know, I deal in more than scrap (Computers and working components). Scrap metal is a very small part of what I do. If they start charging, though, they can forget it. I'll start hoarding then....

Not a good sign of the times....

Oh.... I found myself listening to the music while reading the rest of the posts " everybody scrap now" hahaha

I hear ya sledge, my life is insane being a small trucking company and doing scrap too. it sucks to lose money, im sure everyone on here will agree, but for the ones of us that this is our jobs and this is what we do full time, it is no different than going to beloxy. you win some you lose some. and its weird how on some material 5 cents a pound can be a win but on others 5 cents can be a huge loss. I just hate seeing people lose money. material is worth an amount and you buy it to turn a profit and sit on it for a little and then the price drops... not always as easy as everyone thinks haha

I'm taking a couple hundred pounds down the road tomorrow. Probably $8 for the load.... but a short drive. Making room. Mostly computer cases.

Wietsman - port of albany location dropped from 95 a gt to 65 a gt this week. It's not worth the extra drive now so I guess I'm stuck with my local yard for everything (1.3 cents). Pretty soon, they won't be paying at all. At that time, hopefully, people stop bringing stuff in and supply at the yards dries up, which forces prices back up. I'm probably dreaming, so someone please wake me up.

440 lbs = $17.60 today. Good thing the yard is fairly close.

On a more positive note, I've got a decent box to ship Monday. Expect to net around $125. Looks like ram is up about a $.25 and mobo's up a fraction.

Originally Posted by sledge

Mechanic: Yep.. that was my thought too. I have had a tiny bit of success getting these "out all night" curbco guys to sell me their towers.. no where near what I thought I would get. But since a lot of people are dropping out (don't blame them) maybe they will have a chance to find more towers with less competition.

Humm ... i've got a sneeking suspicion.

Awhile back ... i think it was AGW that said that today's trends will be mirrored in the waste stream later on.

About six or seven years ago people started buying laptops instead of towers. It began that trend to smaller and smaller consumer electronic devices.

It makes sense that we would start seeing fewer towers and more laptops now.

Maybe in a few years we will start seeing tablets & i phones instead of laptops ?

You kinda have to adapt accordingly as every new wave of change comes through.

Last week shred had dropped from 100 a ton to 90. I'm going to Kentucky tomorrow on a service call and will be within a mile of my yard so I thought I would take my shred and sell it. I checked prices this morning and now it's down to 50 a ton. Oh well, I'm still getting good prices on circuit boards and I finally got rid of all my plastic so I'm happy about that. I figure I'll get about 25 dollars for my metal.

I think in a couple of years, if I'm still installing phone systems, I'll probably be scrapping the same type stuff I am now. Most big businesses keep their data networks and telephones up to date but many smaller companies don't. There are so many phone systems that are 10, 15 and 20 years old out there still being used. They keep their data networks updated but many businesses expect their phone systems to run for 20 years.

Prices are down here, too. $90 for shred, $90 for #2 iron, 31 cents for cast aluminum. BUT whole transmissions are FINALLY at a reasonable price at 5 cents per pound. Now after waiting over 10 years for the price to return to realistic levels I can finally make money on scrap transmissions. I can now buy junk transmissions at $10 each from the salvage yards and actually make a profit BEFORE I sell the parts that I can salvage. For the last 10 or so years I lost money on the scrap value of every transmission I bought. If I could not salvage enough parts or could not flip the transmission then I could not buy them so let them go to the shredder. Now that they are all shredded, scrap is down, and the unobtainium parts are sky high I am doing ok. These scrap prices, though low, are the best thing that has happened to me in years.

The recent unreal high scrap prices have gutted the available used parts markets. Now that scrap prices are at reasonable levels again I can buy more, salvage more, and have the parts my customers need to fix their transmissions. Basically for the last 40 years, except from about 2006 until now, I always made my money on scrap with parts as a bonus. Since 2006, parts were the bill payers, and scrap was the bonus. Now at these prices I can make money on both ends, scrap because of the price, and parts because so many of them were shredded over the last few years.

I don't expect prices to change a lot over the next year or so since in the past when prices crashed it took 2 to 3 years to come out of the dumps. That is prime time for scrappers to expand their customer base. When everyone else is leaving the business, the smart ones gain customers knowing that prices will eventually rise. When price rise, the smart scrappers have the edge since they have a loyal customer base. Sure, one may need to work twice as hard for half of the profit, but when things turn around, and they always do, one will be working three times as hard for ten times the profit. That is how scrap empires have always been built.