Sob's & crt's

OK when I got to work this morning, I have three more monitors. That's a total of eleven this week illegally dumped in our dumpsters. The SOB's dumped eight for us on Monday and now three more this morning. This is not the first time, I have not kept records of how many in the last four years (more than 30), since we started processing our own trash. One of our biggest problems is the illegal dumping that goes on. We have security and cameras, but large complexes with 24/7 operations, Hard (very hard) to monitor dumpsters, distinguish between authorized and illegal dumping. The good thing is this week they didn't break the CRT's and they were complete systems. That's towers (not gutted), printers, battery backups and they even boxed up all the cabling (how nice of the SOB's).

Looks like we will be breaking down CRT's today!

It's better than them loading up the trunk of a car to get more weight - I guess

if ppl dump stuff
and if theres something in it for you-its not so bad

compared to them picking all the goodies clean & dumping totally useless scrap in your dumpsters.

Yes it's always better if your going to throw a dog a bone, that you leave a little "meat" on that bone. No I don't like illegal dumping in any form, why - well it's illegal. Here in California, it's illegal to dispose of your trash on private or public property without consent or permission. E-waste is not supposed to go in normal trash, certainly not supposed to dump hazardous waste (TV, monitors, CRT's, batteries, florescent light bulbs, oil and many more items).

Let me put it in simple math terms. Just for explanation and demonstration, we have man #1 and man #2, both equal in every way except:
Man #1 is a customer and pays to be on your property and allowed to dispose of his trash. He pays you $2 and cost you $.50, we made $1.50, thank you #1.
Man #2 is not a customer, but an uninvited "guest", that comes onto your property in he middle of the night, he pays you nothing and cost you $.50, we loose $.50, don't get caught #2!

Scraping is not how I earn my living, it helps me control cost for myself and my customers. I like doing it and I thank the members of SMF as you have taught me almost everything I know about scraping.

You have to love dumping.

At our first E-Waste event, someone left a 60" projection TV next to the truck the night before the event. At least it worked, so I got a nice TV... until it broke.

Cameras only do so much. Fortunately, cameras and a big sign have worked for us. You don't want the reputation of being a dump. There was a place out here that used to take E-Waste for free. The CRTs got out of hand. We had one of these as our large truck back then:


I know that there were at least 10 loads worth of CRTs outside alone. That's not figuring weight- that would be just filling the box until it's full. The DEQ was finally called after you could see the pile from the highway (They were about 3-4 blocks back, but there was open space between them and the road).

What a mess...

A dump reputation isn't a good thing.

Matador - You are 100% right about, "looking like a dump". My experience of property management (20+ years), that if you don't stay on top of it, you become a "magnet" for all kinds of problems. Illegal dumping and graffiti almost seem to go hand in hand. In that tolerate one and the other will follow. Along come other vandalizing and then next thing you have more serious crime. They actually have a term for this, "Broken Window Syndrome", if you run a business It's suggested reading, that I highly recommend (just let goggle be your educator). I personally try to get all signs of crime handle swiftly and work at any means to minimize becoming someones victim!

Completely true!

The dumping didn't concern me as much as the theft did.

What a poorly run operation. I saw people dumping entire pickup truck loads at once.

The DEQ and the city got after them and they cleaned it up somehow. There is still some dumping, though. They were glad that we would take towers. They sent them all to us eventually, just to try to keep the facility from getting out of hand and to stop theft. Imagine how many hard drives were compromised? It makes me shudder today- this was two years ago.

Once you start down that slope, you never stop.

I did a quick calculation from past experience - not counting labor, you can make a profit from tearing down CRTs and legally recycling the leaded glass .

Regulations are the killer. Out here, you don't want to touch CRTs for the fear of DEQ, much less refine the glass.

Took 17 CRT's in this week, to a Korean company. They have both R-2 and Cal. Stewardship cert's, this is a local company (less than 2 miles away). They pay $3 to $5 for complete units (not stripped). Just happy to have a local company to recycle them. I did get a receipt, but not sure where they go from here?

wish I had someone close to me to take them. I have about 4-500 complete units on hand, along with 1500 tubes in gaylords, SMH !!