If you already have an SUV get a little 5x8 trailer from the lowes or tractor supply for $600 or less and you can haul a lot more. I started out with nothing but a 4 banging Toyota Tacoma when I was In high school. I got a trailer and a wheelbarrow and me and my friends would take a generator and sawzall back into the woods and tear apart long abandoned cars and trucks. Throw them on the wheel barrow and take em out to the truck. I grossed over $20k my senior year. I could have made a crap ton more but had to learn everything on my own. so pretty much the first 6 months everything went into light iron. Otherwise I could have made at least twice that. I do like what patriot said. This and any business you get into you will start to make next to nothing and as you get more skilled and knowledgeable you will do better. I was making around $40-$80 a load when I first started back when steel was $9/100. that would be divided in 2 to pay my friends and we would be working from around 4-9pm.
Now I have some old beat up Dakota I bought from the yard for less than $1k, a new tacoma and some trailers I made. I have way more skills and knowledge and a few more tools. back then it was all hand tools. now its power tools and a splitting maul. I take every appliance type deal apart with the maul and cut apart compressors and stuff with power tools. I used to take all my compressors and sell them for $.18 cents a pound back in the day (9 cents a pound now). I have started buying them and taking them apart. I started out doing 100-200 lbs in about 4 hours. now I can do 1000lbs in 3 hours (roughly $20-$40 an hour depending on copper recovery). It took around 3000lbs to really start getting fast at them, and around $2000 in tools (most of which I already had with the exception of the plasma system). I'm now not even really trying to search for metals and still making at least $2-300 a week in free found metals.
Skateboarding taught me that persistence will pay off and that you always need to pick yourself back up no matter how bad you fall. I ramble pretty bad after the concussion I got riding motocross so to sum up what I just tried to say, If you are persistent at your business and gain the skills, knowledge, and connections needed you will start improving your salary. If you just act like someone else is going to step in and make everything better you will stay where your at.
And don't do what I do just because I said to do it. Decide what works best for you. Sure I can cut up thousands of pounds of stuff and haul it out with a small little Dakota. but some of the waste guys are probably making way more than me doing nothing more than squeezing the trigger on their impact driver and tossing around a few pounds of metal every now and then. take the advice of everyone, and combine it all together to fit your needs and do what works best for you.
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