Should I or Shouldn't I Take the E-waste Plunge ?? - Page 2

also scrap yards here are advertising Electronics, all circuit boards, all computers / parts, non working tablets, laptops. Cell phones and home electronics

Better yet do what these guys are doing... Suburban Miners - Tucson computer and electronic eWaste recycling centers.

Originally Posted by Mechanic688

1956, I do know that our local yard is now buying all electronic's except for CRT's cheap (Real cheap) and has one or two guys dedicated to breaking down the more profitable stuff and shipping a semi load to Indy to a big buyer?? I believe the two breaking down are getting paid percentage, but how that's broke down I don't know.
The non profitable stuff is just sent out with cords cut and their buyer buys it whole. (can't pay much)

Mechanic688 years ago my torch guys got paid piece meal meaning I paid them by the amount of steel they cut buy the ton,it's another thing to think about thanks.

But Hobo..what are they paying is the big question? You say you sell them mid-grade boards. So is their pricing better or even with our buyers here? An that other site you linked..they don't even pay! Just want donations from what i saw.

I pay for my stuff a lot of the time, it keeps people coming to me instead of the.."We'll pick it up for free, but not pay you for it" type of guys. If that works in someones area great, but it wouldn't work in mine. People like getting paid for their ewaste, it may not be much but it's better then tossing it in the trash.

It why I can honestly say..I don't have many to compete with. Nobody wants to spend money to make money. Thats ok with me tho..means more business for me.

Sirscrapalot - Another day another dollar.

Originally Posted by Sirscrapalot

But Hobo..what are they paying is the big question? You say you sell them mid-grade boards. So is their pricing better or even with our buyers here? An that other site you linked..they don't even pay! Just want donations from what i saw.

I pay for my stuff a lot of the time, it keeps people coming to me instead of the.."We'll pick it up for free, but not pay you for it" type of guys. If that works in someones area great, but it wouldn't work in mine. People like getting paid for their ewaste, it may not be much but it's better then tossing it in the trash.

It why I can honestly say..I don't have many to compete with. Nobody wants to spend money to make money. Thats ok with me tho..means more business for me.

Sirscrapalot - Another day another dollar.

Yes the place that is drop off only would be the business to be in the other places are $.15 - $1.00

Originally Posted by Mechanic688

Nothing like educating your direct competition, you worked for your education on ewaste and your spoon feeding it to them.

Just my opinion, Sorry

It's completely kool. I can see why you would say that.

There's a method to the stupidity:

1: Around here it's considered selfish to withhold your knowledge from another who might benefit from it. We're all out for ourselves but we all share as well.

2: I'm trying to position myself as a buyer with integrity. That means transparency ! When i say to the guys that your best deal is in selling whole towers to me for five dollars i am sincere. They need to have the opportunity to go find out for themselves that what i'm telling them is true.

3: I've got a two year jump on them. If they want to compete i'm betting that i can beat them on a level playing field. Competition is a good thing. It drives you to do better.

4: All of that knowledge that i laid out for them won't help them much. There's just no getting around it ... you have to do the work to earn the benefit.

5: ( Gentle laughter ) ....This e-scrap ......It's too much like work ! It's really no different than any other kind of scrapping.

1956 has the right idea. Buy and sell.

Originally Posted by Scrappah

As much as anything experience is the best teacher. Before deciding to get into e-waste why not do some processing and ship out a few boxes to one of the buyers here ?

Most of the local scrappers in my area have their heads wrapped around steel, aluminum, copper & brass because that's what they have always done. You know how it is ..... monkey see / monkey do. Someone comes in and starts scrapping electronics then they take an interest. They want to do it too.

To Them: E-waste is something complicated and really weird. I can tell by looking at their leavings that they're still thinking in terms of aluminum & copper. If they see something familiar like a wire or an aluminum heat sink they grab it and toss the rest. They like hard drives because it's a chunk of higher grade aluminum.

They're completely overlooking the gold bearing items that are right there in plain view.

Towers are about the easiest thing to do. I tore one down in front of a couple of the local guys so that if they did want to get into it they could. Again ... they could care less about the processor & the ram. They seemed more interested in the power supply because that's where the copper transformers & ferrites are.

That's what's gonna help em' most so i explained where to look for the power boards that are found in most electronics/

For whatever it's worth the basic breakdown of a tower isn't that hard to do. You could almost set it up like an assembly line and have separate bins for each of the components. It could go like this:

Bin #1: Plastics
Bin #2: Steel
Bin #3: Power supplies
Bin #4: Floppy disc drives
Bin #5: CD / DVD drives
Bin #6: Finger cards
Bin #7: Hard drives
Bin #8: Computer wire

What's left after that is the motherboard. You have to break that down a little bit but it's not hard.

Bin # 9a: processor cooling fans
Bin #9b: Aluminum heat sinks
Bin #9c: Processors
Bin # 9d: Memory chips
Bin # 9e: The little coin cell batteries like you find in a watch

That's pretty much all there is. It's not hard to do a basic teardown like this in under ten minutes. From there you're pretty much ready to start selling stuff to your buyers.

If you've got guys on the clock and it's a slow day you could have them do this instead of idling. You could train just about anybody to do it.

That would be one way of getting your feet wet without getting a lot invested in it. If it pans out, and you like doing it,you could gradually start branching out into other e-waste items.

Thank you Scrappah for all your information, I do have some experience in e-waste but I am no expert, it's like any thing the more you do it the better you get at it. I my self have no plans to be braking down towers on a daily basis, my time will be developing business contacts and finding good outs for merchandise.My area is wide open, the scrap yards by no means promote e-waste recycling I plan on filling that void.

I'm in a unique spot. I'm the only E-Wate processor within 100 miles. 100 miles away, there are four, so...

We're isolated. I do very well- at least in my mind. The dissassembly is easy, and since I fix/sell computers as my "other" job, E-Waste is a great source for parts and even systems sometimes!

I do travel a lot for pickups, but in Fort Lauderdale, I'd assume you wouldn't have days where you drive 300-400 miles.

To me, it sounds like you have all you need to try. Why not? Unless you take CRTs, you have nothing to lose

Originally Posted by matador

I'm in a unique spot. I'm the only E-Wate processor within 100 miles. 100 miles away, there are four, so...

We're isolated. I do very well- at least in my mind. The dissassembly is easy, and since I fix/sell computers as my "other" job, E-Waste is a great source for parts and even systems sometimes!

I do travel a lot for pickups, but in Fort Lauderdale, I'd assume you wouldn't have days where you drive 300-400 miles.

To me, it sounds like you have all you need to try. Why not? Unless you take CRTs, you have nothing to lose

Well I have decided to take the plunge, we will be setting it up over the Labor Day weekend, I ordered a few signs, some flags, got a dozen or so Gaylord's for sorting, one of the members uses Electronic Salvage and I am going with that rather than computer recycling, I just bought myself another job and I am semi retired. I will keep you guys up dated, thanks for all your ideas and suggestions.

If it doesn't make your accounting too complex, it would be interesting to differentiate your E-Waste transactions vs your other scrapping. You can look back in 6 months or a year and find out if this was a good choice or not.

Also, does your son work with you? Since he bugging you to get into this, I would give him some responsibility over this. It would be good to have your E-Scrap person/people be family, or at least someone you trust. E-Waste is pretty lucrative due to the lack of competition, so you need to make sure the people you teach aren't going to become your competition.

One more big point - make sure you spend some time talking to PartTimeScrapper, and have an eye for what you can send to him for much more than scrap. I regularly get items worth 2-10 times scrap value that I send to him. It can be the difference between a tower being worth $7 in scrap vs $50 in reusable parts. You don't need a lot of computer knowledge or deal with Ebay when you work with him.

Good luck!

[QUOTE=foobar;213767]If it doesn't make your accounting too complex, it would be interesting to differentiate your E-Waste transactions vs your other scrapping. You can look back in 6 months or a year and find out if this was a good choice or not.

Also, does your son work with you? Since he bugging you to get into this, I would give him some responsibility over this. It would be good to have your E-Scrap person/people be family, or at least someone you trust. E-Waste is pretty lucrative due to the lack of competition, so you need to make sure the people you teach aren't going to become your competition.

One more big point - make sure you spend some time talking to PartTimeScrapper, and have an eye for what you can send to him for much more than scrap. I regularly get items worth 2-10 times scrap value that I send to him. It can be the difference between a tower being worth $7 in scrap vs $50 in reusable parts. You don't need a lot of computer knowledge or deal with Ebay when you work with him.

Good luck![/QUOTE

Thank you foobar for your input, well this will be run like a separate business as I do with my cardboard and used appliances I am a true believer in a a high tide covers what's under neath, the less confusion the better, my son is in his late twenty's and yes he works with me, I have only dab baled a little with e-scrap simply because of lack of knowledge he feels as I do that e-scrap is the future and we should be in it so this will be his baby, as far as employes go that has always been a problem we have right now 12 full time employes and a few part timers, there is no way to stop people that work for you to open there on business that's the American dream
That does not mean that because they work for me that they have to no more than than the task at hand requires. I learned a long time ago that your business is as good as your employes I can't drive six trucks at a time and don't want to.

Glad to see you rolling the dice on it 56'.

Good luck, will be interesting hearing your take on things in a couple months when you give us a good update.

Sirscrapalot - Why Does Pluto Live in a dog house, eat dog food, etc. but Goofy, who is also a dog, lives in a condo and drives a car? And, why is Mickey Mouse bigger than his dog Pluto? - Stolen from a random thought site.

Originally Posted by Sirscrapalot

Glad to see you rolling the dice on it 56'.

Good luck, will be interesting hearing your take on things in a couple months when you give us a good update.

Sirscrapalot - Why Does Pluto Live in a dog house, eat dog food, etc. but Goofy, who is also a dog, lives in a condo and drives a car? And, why is Mickey Mouse bigger than his dog Pluto? - Stolen from a random thought site.

Why was Mickey Mouse mad at Minnie? She was f in Goofey!