Last night before trash day

[philshark2]

This little score was nice, over a pound of aluminum cans found last night this door is aluminum, cant seem to get the screws out, any advice for this item? And finally i found $10 on the ground last night

[hobo finds]

Quite a bit of CRV! It amazes me that anyone in Cali would just toss the cans and bottles that they paid a deposit on! It cant be that hard to return them to get YOUR Money Back!

[philshark2]

Quite a bit of CRV! It amazes me that anyone in Cali would just toss the cans and bottles that they paid a deposit on! It cant be that hard to return them to get YOUR Money Back!

Yea! I cant believe it! The box of diet coke was full of cans and i found about 6!

[TheRecycleGuy]

harbor freight has some easy out screw removals for cheap price

[philshark2]

harbor freight has some easy out screw removals for cheap price

I got one screw but the other one got stripped, any more advice?

[scrappinlife]

If it's an aluminum door frame, bend it and break it to get it apart. Take a hammer to it. Then go at the screw with a pair of vice grips to get it out.

[philshark2]

alright, I got it, I just had to hit with a hammer and it came apart

[eesakiwi]

Yep, I just put the bit where the screw is on the top edge of something and bash the back edge with a hammer.
This opens up the Ali around the screw making it easy to unscrew or pop out.

If in the field doing Ali extrusion, and you want to make the long peices shorter.
Make a deep scratch on the thinner edges of the Ali, Like by scraping it across the concrete edge of the footpath.
Then bend it so the scratch is on the outside of the curve and normally it will snap there, few more bends and it breaks.

Im telling you this because one day I am walking to my scrap 'drop off area' and theres a guy franticaly trying to shove a 10 foot strip of Ali extrusion into his car boot before I get there.

[DakotaRog]

Is a car "boot" the car's trunk??

[MattInTheHat]

Is a car "boot" the car's trunk??

Only if its a British car. In some American cities, the boot is the part that makes you pay parking fines.

[eesakiwi]

Is a car "boot" the car's trunk??

Haha, lulz. Yeah 'trunk'. Theres so many things that we say and don't relise its got a different meaning to Americans.
I have worked with quite a few Americans and this subject has come up a few times.



When I did my apprenticeship the owner of the company was American.
They brought the business from a chap who waz actually shifting to America.
I think he was getting a job as boss of the magazine 'Popular Mechanics'.
If anyone knows anything about this, could you ost any info you have.

My boss there, his Father owned a machine shop in LosAngeles making oxygen tanks for WWII aircraft. Just after the war they shifted here to NZ.

Its a small world after all.

[bigburtchino]

Phil - With scrap metal prices way down, here in Cal. our CRV to some degree keeps the value up and very worthy endeavor for any Cal. scrapper. One of the companies I own, manages large commercial properties ("Business Parks"), with multiple and different tenants leasing shop or office space. So lots of trash and dumpsters, we sort these dumpster before we call for trash pickup. Removing all scrap, reusable items and recycled items, diverting from landfills and reducing our trash bill.

When we first started this, it was the CRV cans and bottles that "stood out", as easy money and required almost no effort. Each week we take in 10 to 20 pounds of aluminum cans and 40 to 50 pounds of plastic beverage containers. A lot of people will save their cans, but the plastic bottles get tossed in the trash by most! Yesterday I took a load of CRV cans and plastic, it was my first trip to a scrap yard in six weeks because of medical problem. I had to because it was piling up, attracts bees and a new California recycling law (limits aluminum can transactions at 100 pounds). I was surprised to see that CRV rates were down, lowest ever for me ($1.95 cans and $1.17 for plastic bottles). Still not as depressed as scrap metal prices have been for months now and takes no effort to process.

I want to give you a little warning about "trash night" and curb side scrapping. It's illegal here in Cal. to take them from a recycling can at a residential home. Most times the police are just going to give you a verbal warning. If they write you a written warning or actual ticket, it's usually because a home owner called them. Just want to give you a little "heads up" warning, don't want to see you go backwards with your scrapping and I know your just trying to earn some money. If a home owner sets anything outside of the cans and it's at the curb, perfectly legal to take! We also do a couple of shopping centers and with this being summer there will be lot tossed there. Coin operated car washes are also great CRV opportunities. Good luck and be safe out there!

[hobo finds]

Phil - With scrap metal prices way down, here in Cal. our CRV to some degree keeps the value up and very worthy endeavor for any Cal. scrapper. One of the companies I own, manages large commercial properties ("Business Parks"), with multiple and different tenants leasing shop or office space. So lots of trash and dumpsters, we sort these dumpster before we call for trash pickup. Removing all scrap, reusable items and recycled items, diverting from landfills and reducing our trash bill.

When we first started this, it was the CRV cans and bottles that "stood out", as easy money and required almost no effort. Each week we take in 10 to 20 pounds of aluminum cans and 40 to 50 pounds of plastic beverage containers. A lot of people will save their cans, but the plastic bottles get tossed in the trash by most! Yesterday I took a load of CRV cans and plastic, it was my first trip to a scrap yard in six weeks because of medical problem. I had to because it was piling up, attracts bees and a new California recycling law (limits aluminum can transactions at 100 pounds). I was surprised to see that CRV rates were down, lowest ever for me ($1.95 cans and $1.17 for plastic bottles). Still not as depressed as scrap metal prices have been for months now and takes no effort to process.

I want to give you a little warning about "trash night" and curb side scrapping. It's illegal here in Cal. to take them from a recycling can at a residential home. Most times the police are just going to give you a verbal warning. If they write you a written warning or actual ticket, it's usually because a home owner called them. Just want to give you a little "heads up" warning, don't want to see you go backwards with your scrapping and I know your just trying to earn some money. If a home owner sets anything outside of the cans and it's at the curb, perfectly legal to take! We also do a couple of shopping centers and with this being summer there will be lot tossed there. Coin operated car washes are also great CRV opportunities. Good luck and be safe out there!

If it keeps going any lower you may only get the CRV back no extra for the aluminum...

[DakotaRog]

Burt- When you say, "$1.95" and "$1.17" you're meaning what the CRV items equate to a pound, right? So has the CRV face value stamped on the container changed or its just what it is beyond the nickel and some cases a dime per container??

We've been recycling our #1 & #2 plastics for almost 20 years now (I think they rolled out the "mandatories"--Al cans, steel food cans, 1 & 2 plastics, newspaper/cardboard/office paper, and later glass soon after we got married and will be 20 years come Feb.). Anything consumer consumable coming out of the house gets rinsed (I've often wonder if I waste more energy washing out some nastier containers with my hot water than gets saved recycling--I've given up on PB jars and even some salad dressing bottles, too much hot water & soap to get them clean to be worth it). It can be a chore after a while but I'll live with it.

I know some people who still don't get those items out of the waste stream. Unless their waste carrier keeps getting pinged with higher dump rates by having too many recyclables in their loads (the landfill guys spot check loads to determine load rates), the non-compliant folks get away with it. I've never given any Al cans to the waste hauler. They always get cashed in (for just scrap price) by me. One of the big but still local waste haulers has been very aggressive in getting the lowest dump rates possible and has multiple customer incentives to get all the mandatories out of their loads (rebates on their trash bills, gift cards, etc.). This company probably has the lowest % of recyclables going to the landfill. When Waste Management came to this metro 25+ years ago, there was concern they'd run out the local guys out of business. This didn't happen and the other company I'm talking about is probably one of the reasons why.

P.S. Maybe I should save up my 1 & 2 plastic bottles and make an Iowa run for CRV

(just kidding!!)

[bigburtchino]

Rog - Yes CRV (Cal. Redemption Value) for Aluminum cans, that are marked CRV, yesterday was the lowest rate I have ever received $1.95 per pound. My guess this is due to lower aluminum scrap metal rates and a down scrap metal market for everyone. Ironically or my bad timing this was my largest load for aluminum cans (87 pounds). The highest rate for Alum. cans was $2.25 (Nov. 2014), January it was $2.21, in May I was getting $2.13, a trend reflecting the declining values of all scrap metal, with aluminum only recently dropping. With a $0.30 a pound difference in the last nine months, I think the scrap yard is trying to capture some revenue where he can, as aluminum sheet isn't down no where near that ratio. This has to be a really tough time for the small scrap yards, the company I sell my non-ferrous is also my CRV yard. A family business, that also did a major expansion last year, more scales, better computer tracking, more fork lifts, way more off loading space, amazing video tracking (keeps every event/transaction recorded), all positive upgrades for better customer service. He wasn't one of the big yards I started with, but when I started shopping for better scrap rates and service, his company took time to help me maximize my profits. In less than a year he set me up with a commercial account, always keeps me informed what's best for both of us. I normally go to this yard almost weekly, but have needed to cut back my working schedule for medical reasons. When I missed three weeks of not going to his yard, he called to find out if I was OK, not about business, but genuine concern about me. When I told him the problem, he offered nothing but help. I thanked him, but told him I will make the needed personal and business adjustments, as for our business relationship I plan to be around for another 20 years and I hope he will as well.

The one thing I learned in the last six weeks, I can't hold my cans and bottles more than six weeks due to my storage space and regulations. The new per-person, per-day limits are 100 pounds of aluminum or plastic California Redemption Value (CRV)-eligible containers and 1,000 pounds of CRV glass. Previously, the limits were 500 pounds of aluminum or plastic and 2,500 pounds of glass. If you are over 100 pounds, you can't sell any of that item, that day at that yard (they can't split the ticket into two transactions). I did learn that if I register with the state as a business recycling company, I can sell over 100 pounds per day (plan to explore that for future expansion). The hardest thing about CRV, is keeping up with the never ending "rule makers" (bureaucrats/politicians).