When Profit is questionable

[F.I.LetsGoFishing]

Curiouse how others deal with marginaly or completly non proitable scraps.
I have seen a few posts stating nothing goes to the landfill, How is that done without taking a loss??
Things such as mid grade , low grade boards cost more money to ship than they pay out. so do you (as I have been)sell them at the same time as your high grade boards and such there by reducing you $ per # so that it lets you make such claims ( in my case keep legal) or do you just have that much volume so as to reduce your cost per # on freight (if you have a UPS account with the third highest discount rate the best rate you get is a 50# box @ .27/# so that has to be deducted from your price quoted)

I have pretty much limited myself to computors for this reason as I rarely have any low grade boards to deal with but with the number of old amps and other electronics I run into it pains me to pass them up. and luckily for me I have been able to work out a deal with a few local scrapers who do not want to deal with internet sales to trade at a loss with shredable steel which works for me as I do not have the space to store enough of the bulkier stuff to warrent a trip to those yards.

I know this is something nobody likes to think about but it is reality, We take trash, harvest what we can sell and generate what is now known as waste that we legaly must deal with unless we can find a buyer.

I am still trying to figure out how to find buyers for some of my waste such as plastics that are no longer attached to something steel that is not accepted in the shred pile you know those things that try as we may to leave attached but come off anyway, that make supper glue come to mind but then the glue costs more than the weight of the plastic adds to the pile.

[dherik]

I sell every part. I have gaylords gfull of plastic when I get enough I have a buyer. Low grade boards go to the yard when I take cases in. Wire gets saved up till I have enough to fill one Gaylord too.

I do not scrap anything except pc's, consumer electronics; no tvs or CRT monitors.

[Rustjunkie]

I sell every part. I have gaylords gfull of plastic when I get enough I have a buyer. Low grade boards go to the yard when I take cases in. Wire gets saved up till I have enough to fill one Gaylord too.

I do not scrap anything except pc's, consumer electronics; no tvs or CRT monitors.

That's very good business practice, would you be willing to tell us more about marketing the plastics in particular, and who is taking plastics at any price.
That is one of the most common problems for all of us.

[dherik]

I sell every part. I have gaylords gfull of plastic when I get enough I have a buyer. Low grade boards go to the yard when I take cases in. Wire gets saved up till I have enough to fill one Gaylord too.

I do not scrap anything except pc's, consumer electronics; no tvs or CRT monitors.

That's very good business practice, would you be willing to tell us more about marketing the plastics in particular, and who is taking plastics at any price.
That is one of the most common problems for all of us.

I did a google search for scrap plastic buyer, I tried several till one guy out of Chicago referred me to a company up in Minnesota Choice Plastics is the company. But like any scrap company they want a decent amount, and I usually end up paying freight. Sometimes it's a wash, but I haven't ever lost money on plastic. I honestly believe in the no-landfill policy I promote.

[F.I.LetsGoFishing]

I sell every part. I have gaylords gfull of plastic when I get enough I have a buyer. Low grade boards go to the yard when I take cases in. Wire gets saved up till I have enough to fill one Gaylord too.

I do not scrap anything except pc's, consumer electronics; no tvs or CRT monitors.

You most opperate in valume, buying then reselling.
If so, do you accept the plasics from those you buy from? I mean if I came to you to sell you high and midgrade boards would you take the cleaned plasics off my hands if I gave it to you? and I'm guessing your yard has no qualms with the boards in with shred.

[dherik]

I sell every part. I have gaylords gfull of plastic when I get enough I have a buyer. Low grade boards go to the yard when I take cases in. Wire gets saved up till I have enough to fill one Gaylord too.

I do not scrap anything except pc's, consumer electronics; no tvs or CRT monitors.

You most opperate in valume, buying then reselling.
If so, do you accept the plasics from those you buy from? I mean if I came to you to sell you high and midgrade boards would you take the cleaned plasics off my hands if I gave it to you? and I'm guessing your yard has no qualms with the boards in with shred.

The majority of my plastic comes from commercial laser printers and copiers. I don't even typically just take them I almost always charge to haul them off. The only thing I buy is from PC shops, and that's their stripped down PC parts, and I'll be honest I pay $10-20 for about 75 pounds worth of mother boards, and a pound each of ram and processors . What low grade boards do go to the yard go to the ferrous side and they pay on average 11 cents a pound depending on who's at the desk.

My typical volume is actually pretty low, I just have shop space that I worked out with the owner of my company now. I get to use the company forklift, about 700 sq ft of indoor shop space we haven't used in about 10 years. For that I took half my raise I would have gotten, works out to the same as me paying for the two storage units I had. If I had a larger operation, and was doing this full time I would take all the free ABS I could get, it doesn't pay great typically a few cents a pound, but a couple thousand pounds adds up. Plastic right now for me I view as the cost of doing business, and recycling it is just the responsible thing to do. And honestly if I had a local company that would pick it up for free and recycle it and not pay me I'd probably give it to them. It's a byproduct of what I do.

[F.I.LetsGoFishing]

I completely agree with doing the responcible thing. But for many, myself included who are more or less just hobbyests and learning, are not sure what that realy is or how to go about it. The bit I I have been doing with the low grade boards of selling at the same time as some higher grade and offsetting profits has had more to do with legalities that I learned of through a family member who knows landfill management.
Plasics, while not illeagal to discard in trash here do not degrade and just take up space in the fills. So recycleing, while not completely enviromentaly sound does reduce the speed at which the land fills reach capasity. much the same principle as recycling paper to reduce tree use.
Couriouse, When you take the low grade boards to the yard, are they just the boards or still whole and intact to the metal case, if still intact do you remve the transformers and such?? I realize acceptence does very from yard to yard

[dherik]

I completely agree with doing the responcible thing. But for many, myself included who are more or less just hobbyests and learning, are not sure what that realy is or how to go about it. The bit I I have been doing with the low grade boards of selling at the same time as some higher grade and offsetting profits has had more to do with legalities that I learned of through a family member who knows landfill management.
Plasics, while not illeagal to discard in trash here do not degrade and just take up space in the fills. So recycleing, while not completely enviromentaly sound does reduce the speed at which the land fills reach capasity. much the same principle as recycling paper to reduce tree use.
Couriouse, When you take the low grade boards to the yard, are they just the boards or still whole and intact to the metal case, if still intact do you remve the transformers and such?? I realize acceptence does very from yard to yard

I don't strip down the boards unless they've got IC chips on them, then I depopulate them, otherwise it's just fill the crap board box till I take in a load of pc shells.

[F.I.LetsGoFishing]

Guess I will have to do a little more investigative searching, We have several large yards that will not take board bearing items, But there are quite a few smaller players in the area that I have not touched on the board subject with and while I am at it see about capasitors which is another item I have problems with.
Been giving some thought though on the plastics. Going to try talking with a few of the local injection molders to try and get some insight locally.
Thanks for your input, as while I may not personally believe that all forms of recycling is the true green way to go, Its not really all about how I see it but more how a prospective client sees it but before I could ever make such claims I have to be able to back it up, Much like dealing with places like Boardsort and Cash for scrap, I can be honest when I tell them that I am not selling on Internet auction but rather to companies which to many makes a big difference in weather or not they are willing to deal with you. They know there is a big underground market that has no environmental conscience and knowing that you are not reselling to someones kitchen chemistry experiment makes a difference.

[weaponepsilon]

Choice plastics is one of the ones I deal with here in MN. They are pulling our of the "e-scrap" plastics. I now take that all to Trident Polymers who always buys. The bonus for me is that they share the same building as Lakeside Recyclers who buy e scrap so I can bring in all the low grade I don't want to deal with like printers.