Why do people give their scrap away?

A question to you who picks up scrap for free. Why do people give you their scrap? It is worth money so why dont they just take it to the scrapyard themself and make some money? Im trying to understand this buissness

What they said.

I have opened computers and phone systems before and pointed to each board, heat sink, transformer and other components, telling them exactly what I get for each one and where I sell them.

They always look at me and say something like "That's all you get? Seems like a waste of time"

What I don't tell them is how long it takes to break down a computer and how many I break down in a years time.

Lots of people like to help out others. Its one way of helping others without giving out money. Its goes both ways, Help out someone with there junk removale and you get the scrap for yourself.

You know the conversation..

home owner - "Im so glad thats gone, Thank you for getting rid of that for me."
Scrap guy - Thank you for the scrap, have a good day! ! !

I've noticed sometimes that it is their way of paying for your gas/time to come and haul their stuff away. Since most people who just give away scrap and valuable materials, it is because they just don't want to fool with the trips to the yard/dump. They call you in to haul it off, and don't ask for anything in return because they really don't know how much you'd get for it. That is pretty much what someone told me when I picked up from them just the other day. They said they had thought about taking it in themselves, but the yard was further away than comfort, and they just didn't have the time.

People who make a comfortable living tend to not bother with what they think of as a waste of effort profit/time wise. It feels good helping somebody else out while ditching things they don't want.

Individuals don't usually come into contact with enough scrap metal to bother recycling it themselves. Its not like there is any money scrapping their home PC once every 3 years and they probably just put their aluminum cans in the cities biweekly recycling bin rather then fill the garage up with bags of pop cans for that 2 times a year trip to the recycler (let alone feel like smashing those cans so they fit into their trunk).

Lots of businesses I worked at didn't care about profiting in their scrap, all they wanted was to get it out of the way so they can concentrate on what they are good at when times are good. When times got tough they would waste dollars chasing dimes.

Scrapping is a time consuming volume business where margins are not that great all things considered. For every day you find something valuable there are weeks you probably don't. Plus the scrap value of metals is tied to many factors out of your control.

Originally Posted by auminer

Now that "tin" is down to 3 cents a pound here in DFW I won't mess with water heaters and appliances and the like. I have a guy I call and let him take them.

He's hungrier than I am. The wear & tear on my truck makes it at best break even unless I'm already going that way.

Even scrappers give scrap away.

(rest assured those water heaters don't have copper pipe or brass relief vales when I call my guy )

That Satog S650G tractor that I had went on a free ad then a week later a Kubota rototiller.

Next on the has to go list a 95 Dodge Dakota 4x4 after I pull the engine and transmission then cut the cat off.

So yea even scrappers give away stuff they have no desire to deal with.

I could borrow the crane truck and haul this myself but one small truck with a three hour round trip to Jack would not even pay for the fuel.

Originally Posted by Patriot76

It might boil down to the most common question on this forum, "Is it worth it to break down ?????" Individuals determine their knowledge, experience, resources, and time in all their decisions. For a lot of people the opportunity cost is not worth messing with scrap. Example although extreme: It is a bad investment for Bill Gates to stop to pick up a $ 100.00 because he makes $ 114.16 per second. In comparison as a scrapper it is worth my time to bend down and pick up a penny.

Gates would just pick up the phone then have six lawyers at $500.00 an hour each to sue your for that $100.00 bucks, nice tax write off.

For where I live I think the main reason is distance. Our only scrap yard shut down a few years ago and people don't want to drive the hour to get to yard.

Originally Posted by Snowman18

Best score I had picked up an old one hour photo lab the silver reclaimer was very heavy so I told the guy that he should send it in for refining. Told me to keep it, $1800.00 worth of silver.

The reclaimer is filled with steel wool as the spent chemicals pass through the reclaimer an ion exchange takes place leaving the silver behind as a black sludge.

Even after suggesting to the guy that he should send it in for refining he still told me to keep it, I gave up long ago trying to figure people out.

X-ray labs will have similar canisters while dental offices use a heavy metal trap, when my buddy from Saskatchewan purchased a building once used as a dental clinic he gave me box's full of the old traps.

The traps are full of precious metals, blood and bone matter and stink to high heaven when opened, had to retort the mercury out before going after the silver, gold and platinum groups.

You are saying dental x-ray machines have precious metals in them? I have picked up 3 so far and have been breaking them down and just scrapping the parts. I have one in sitting in my back yard right now. And I will probably receive more in the future. I will have to investigate this one. Maybe I will take a picture and post it.

Originally Posted by Snowman18

Gates would just pick up the phone then have six lawyers at $500.00 an hour each to sue your for that $100.00 bucks, nice tax write off.

Bill Gates would pick up that $100 bill as would most billionaires since its free money, you don't get to be in that position without being greedy.

Originally Posted by nutpie

You are saying dental x-ray machines have precious metals in them? I have picked up 3 so far and have been breaking them down and just scrapping the parts. I have one in sitting in my back yard right now. And I will probably receive more in the future. I will have to investigate this one. Maybe I will take a picture and post it.

The silver is in the film, as it being developed silver leaches out of the film into the developer leaving an image behind.

In the electromotive series of metals iron reacts with metals below itself in the periodic table. Some of you may have heard the term Pig Iron, yes a pig will eat most anything placed before it.

Ferrous sulphate is somewhat selective and is sometimes used to precipitate gold from a leach. Used in excessive amounts is known to drag down other precious metals and its recommended a second refining be carried out using a different precipitant on the second refining.

Something like oxalic acid could be used the second time to improve purity.

Photo and x-ray labs that use developers will have a canister could be a pail with a lid on it that they pass the spent developer through, the canister is filled with steel wool the pig.

As the silver laden solution passes over the steel wool an ion exchange take place, iron molecules exchange for the more noble silver which is deposited as a black sludge.

My Saskatchewan buddy also had his fingers into the demolition of the old Melville hospital, from the lab that processed the film the old cast iron pipe was half full of black sludge. And this sludge carried from the second floor lab right down to the utility room in the basement.

I noticed this when Bill was giving me the tour of the old building, told him to scrap out the sludge then save it in pails to send out for refining. Never got further involved in this project as I was visiting to get some old planks from the old pig barn on his farm to deck a trailer I was building at the time.

Must have been a good haul for Bill as he later gave me a lot of stuff from the Dental Clinic, not sure what happened with the clinic but it was as if the dentist went on vacation leaving everything behind. The building came up on a tax sale and Bill grabbed it up for a song.

I got the heavy metal traps, centrifugal casting machine, small electric gold and silver melting furnace, air compressor hand held high speed dental drills and boxes upon boxes of caps and crowns that I sold with most of those going to buyers in Mexico.

Dental labs have to pay to have the heavy metal traps taken away as hazardous goods and they receive no money for the precious metals inside.

If you want more examples of what these traps look like just google or use Duckduck and search.

"x-ray silver trap"



The pail below would be filled with steel wool.

Originally Posted by miyamuto

A question to you who picks up scrap for free. Why do people give you their scrap? It is worth money so why dont they just take it to the scrapyard themself and make some money? Im trying to understand this buissness

It falls outside of their modus operandi.

In plain english humans are creatures of habit anything outside of their daily routine is foreign to them.

As others have mentioned, work schedules, no desire to haul junk in the family grocery getter.

There is a term they teach in economics called "opportunity cost", that is, the cost of the next best alternative forgone. Basically, what else could you be doing in the same timeslot and how much money would you make doing that other thing? Stated differently, is this thing you are scrapping right now the very best use of your time. So, for someone who works a full-time job and knocks down $100k/year, it isn't worth it for them to scrap.

Another factor has to do with snobbishness or laziness, to put it bluntly. I know lots of people who have plenty of time on their hands and don't have that much money, but they wouldn't be caught dead doing their own yard work or housework. So they pay a yard crew and maid to take care of it for them. I bet there are a bunch of people on this site who go to places like Jiffy Lube instead of changing their own oil.

To add to a comment above, I recently gave away a golf cart that wouldn't run anymore. It was damaged in a big hailstorm and we just don't have a use for it anymore. I don't have a truck, so it is too big for me to take to the scrap yard. Before giving it away, however, I removed the six batteries, some aluminum and a bunch of copper wire.

Another factor that I didn't see mentioned above is that safety aspect. There are probably many people who don't want to open a computer or device that has a sign saying: "Danger. Risk of shock. No user serviceable parts inside."

We probably all do certain things where another person looks at us and thinks to themself "Man, they sure are wasting a lot of money!"