Well, I’m new to scrapping in general and even more new to eWaste. That said, I don’t think we’ve seen the end of it.
The precious metals market can be a bit of a roller coaster. As we saw back in…I think it was 2010 or 2011, everything spiked (I bought my first few ounces of silver back then) and then it crashed and burned. We are seeing the lowest prices in a long while. Catalytic converter prices are dropping as well due to the same reasons. Are cats the Next Big Thing as well? I think we’ve seen that they aren’t.
If you want to talk about Next Big Things, take a look at Bitcoin (and other cryptocurrencies). It spiked when everyone was excited about it, then it fell, and now it’s back on a slow but steady rise. Yet, people are still making money off of it and either buying or building miners. Hell, I almost wish my yard paid in Bitcoin!
But back to eWaste. Precious metals have driven our economies since almost the dawn of human civilization. And the fact that their chemical compositions actually help our growing and more complex technologies as opposed to just looking shiny, to me, ensures that it will all have a place in our business for a long while. If there is a demand, and there is supply, there will be money to be made.
If this is the time when the opportunists or the folks that want to “get rich quick” bow out, I say let them! It gives us a chance to get our foot into more doors than before, secure those contracts, make the customers and clients happy and become “the big guys.” I forget who it is on this forum, but someone has the quote in their signature “profit begins when you buy, not when you sell.” This is the time to buy and make your name known. Seize the day.
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