If the audio/visual cables you are talking about are "coaxial" cable, then you need to know another bit of information: quite a bit of coaxial cable has a copper-covered steel wire core. You can tell with a magnet, as Mech ^ sez.
Most yards will reject this copper covered steel wire and tell you to just put it in with the steel.
But if the coax shielding mesh is copper, then save it. A lot of times it is aluminium, which is still worth money, just not as much as copper.
A yard I occasionally deal with rejects all coax...not even for steel scrap. So pulling out the copper in the higher end coax would be the only way I could get money for it.
There has been a lot of discussion about coax on this board. Most don't spend a lot of time on it, because it doesn't yield much. But that's a personal decision, and when you are on the learning curve you need to strip down just about everything to understand what's in it and how its value relates to your time. 'Cause your time is money but only you can put a value to it.
Don't forget to have a look at the plug ends on the cable. There can be brass under the plating. Touch them with a file or grinder or scratch them with a knife to see.
Since you are a newbie, here's another important detail: Don't overlook the possibility of reselling an item for more than scrap. Scrap is the lowest value you will get out of an item if you dismantle it into its constituent scrap value items: copper, steel, aluminum, etc. But you can easily get more than scrap if you sell that widget for whatever it originally was used for. Example: lots of guys here curb shop old lawnmowers. Some fix the better ones and resell them on Craigs. Others sell the mower as-is to guys who are set up to fix mowers.
Good luck!!
Jon.
Register To Reply
P & M Recycling - Specializing in E-Waste Recycling. 
Bookmarks