Cardboard Scrapper 2016

You made topic of the week regis!

It's nice to see people out there busting their butt and still chugging along rather than complaining prices are down. I hope to be around the same kind of operation as you in the future. How much do you see yourself growing? Personally, I have big dreams and would one day like to own a mrf plant to deal with all types of recyclables

Originally Posted by ruben23

You made topic of the week regis!

It's nice to see people out there busting their butt and still chugging along rather than complaining prices are down. I hope to be around the same kind of operation as you in the future. How much do you see yourself growing? Personally, I have big dreams and would one day like to own a mrf plant to deal with all types of recyclables

Thanks Ruben23,

I hope to double over the next 2-3 years. I'm pushing to land a big client this year. If I do, that means I'll need to hire some help. The key is to be flexible because I can lose a big account just as easily. I may need to collect other materials because that's what my clients are looking for. I'd rather not go there but sometimes its beyond your control. I'm not a fan of MRFs because there's too much contamination once it reaches the facility. And that hurts the prices you get for the material. I'll leave that to the big waste companies while picking off their clients.

I apologize if this was mentioned already and I missed it, but you said you don't provide containers for your customers, and some just leave it outside? Have you ever had issues getting it in the rain? I would imagine wet cardboard is useless to your buyer?

Originally Posted by andyheim

I apologize if this was mentioned already and I missed it, but you said you don't provide containers for your customers, and some just leave it outside? Have you ever had issues getting it in the rain? I would imagine wet cardboard is useless to your buyer?

Hi Andyheim,

Rain is definitely a problem for me but mostly in the summer months when we get spot thunderstorms. Usually if rain is in the forecast I hustle and try to do my collecting before the cardboard gets wet. My larger pick-ups at the school and hospital have covered loading docks where its not an issue. And the bales I collect usually don't soak through so I just leave outside and air dry before loading. It is mostly the smaller pick-ups that get wet and those I'll just throw out. Not a huge amount at less than 5 percent of the total.

Just got some bad news from my broker. Prices are coming down another $5 per ton for the next month. That's gonna hurt as I'm close to my break even point. I guess I will need to tighten the belt a little more. No one said the life of a scrapper was easy.