RCM wrote:
The silver colored ones I usually leave on the wire anyway, my local yard doesn't dock my price with them still attached.
I don't know about your recycling plant you send them to. But we run one and there are 3 grades to ICW (Insulated Copper Wire)
#1 ICW - Is wiring that has at least 75% of wire and nothing else
#2 ICW - which has about 50% copper wiring
Low Grade ICW - Low grade is insulated copper wire with a low copper recovery. Examples of low grade are as follows USB cables, RCA cables, speaker wire, power cords with the plug ends left on, computer ribbon cable, most car wiring harness’, telephone cords, s-video cables, HDMI cables, mouse and keyboard cords, ac adaptor cords and anything with a low copper content.
A lot of places call this stuff differently, the low grade description is the lowest pay grade of all, low grade could be half the price and #2 or Mid Grade
You might want to check with the yard you are recycling with and ask them what grade you are getting. If you are getting #2 ICW with the ends on, then keep them on, but in the end they may be taking the weight off your ticket for those ends.
Example, say you bring in 5lbs, they may be taking a pound off for the ends as they can cut the ends off, we cut the ends off wiring all the time, but when they have the ends on we give them low grade pricing. Or if you are the type of customer that brings them lots of weight in material they will not deduct anything and give you the best price, which is very good, we do that too, if the customer doesn't have a lot of cords to cut and that person brings us lots of materials, we will give them the good price and cut the cords ourselves.
I wanted to bring attention to all the grades of wires so you know if you are getting the best price possible.