Well I’m going to make an observation based assumption. You’re posting on an escrap forum attached to an escrap company’s website so you want to escrap. Yes?
COVID has made life difficult for most of us non-inside escrappers. Which is why over the last 6 months or so. Which is why there’s been an uptick in “the hen did that change” posts as larger hoarders start digging through stuff of lesser value looking to get /something/ out the door.
Sourcing: Right now on the free side of things the best way anyone can do is hop in your vehicle and go on early morning street runs looking for scrap.
Post local notices on Craigslist or the local paper’s free services offerings. And generally tell the public if they put it outside you’ll take it for no charge. Just be clear on what, or what size, you’ll take. Not wanting to get stuck with build-in appliances I once stated “no large appliances” and wound up with a cube washer dryer set. Because Home Depot called them small. Lol.
For the more adventurous and more open to human contact people: there’s some huge sources out there waiting to be tapped. Most cost some level of up front output so use the forums and payout list photos to guide you on what it hints are worth.
Easy:pay for it.
Storage unit auctions and business surplus. You’re gonna pay here, cash, so be prepared for that. Real life isn’t like storage wars. Assuming you get to look at all they usually cut the look, open the door, and start bidding. No looking time. If you see good stuff in original boxes walk away. You’re out of class and the ebay sellers WILL outbid you OR push the price over value. Don’t get into bidding wars. Nobody wins then.
Surplus, returns, and abandonment: This comes in two types. Mixed pallet or single item pallet. Surplus is castoff from larger organisations. May or may not work. Tech is rarely complete.
Returns are literally returned merchandise. Amazon, Best Buy, Office Max/Depot and Staples, Walmart and Tiger are the largest suppliers for return auctions. These are good for scraping because many resellers tend to shy away from the risk with damaged or opened items.
Abandonment auctions are usually the most expensive. Your looking at a pallet to a trailer load of an order that wasn’t paid for or couldn’t be delivered. Still some risk here in that some companies are up tight about acceptance and simply refuse an order that has any damage. Since it’s never been opened up you have no idea the condition of what your buying. I bought a pallet of boxed coin dryers once hoping for a nice payday only to realise in loading the order into the trailer that the weight was WAY off. I bought replacement shells. Not whole machines.
Moderate: Foreclosure and liquidation! This is fairly easy to get involved in at the moment. COVID has destroyed business nation-wide. They usually have a two-type system. An on location blowout. Show up. Grab the card from a liquidation manager. (NEVER ask an employee, it’s the ultimate in rudeness!). The real deal is in the off-site auctions on what’s left. This includes most used items, sales and marketing, display and merchandising, back office, and materials and handling. Second-level liquidation sales have very little competition. The local scrapers and resellers have minimal interest as almost anything easy to flip is already gone. Here you can grab all sorts of valuable, but hard to deal with, stuff. A dozen used laser printers. POS systems. If the company was big enough you get shipping and receiving equipment. Fork lifts. Roller and conveyor belt systems. Low value single input monitors, security, …. Things you’re not going to likely ebay. On the other hand paying $500-$1000 for a totally dead LP forklift is a scrap dream. Some tech experience and you can reprogram security equipment for resale. A dozen 80” LCD displays with a single coax or dvi or hdmi input are a pain to sell and even worse to ship. But the high end etched glass screens make them expensive when they do sell. Both security and POS systems can be a literally gold mine in high telco boards.
Difficult: Buy local loss and waste. This takes a lot of work! You must understand the difference between “no” and “NO”. There is a difference here. This is a case where you need to do some deep backend research. Most major retail companies are out as they can return damage for a partial-to-full refund. So I’ll brake this up a bit.
Resale, consignment, donation, and thrift The larger companies have a free to haul recycling agreement with a tech company. Goodwill uses Dell. Salvation Army and Savers, at least here, use HP. They collect and recycle anything the store can’t sell or gets returned for free. No questions asked. So you’re fighting an uphill battle. You need to make it worth their while to sort, and store, what could be easily just ‘goned’. And they WILL say no at first.
I’ll use my pre-COVID goodwill agreements as the example. They have a no questions asked return policy for everything with a receipt. They also get a LOT do donations that can’t be sold. First off what comes into store A is not sold at store A! You probably noticed your couch never went on the floor. Most damaged items are already sorted out of the stream before it gets to a local store. And no, there’s no way you can get to that. So: what you’re after is stuff that was missed or broken by a customer. After months of weekly Being told no I found out when a district employee would be there, went on that day, and handed him a notarised agreement stating that I would permanently wave all return rights on all purchases to have access to PAY $0.25-$1.00 per damaged items in classes I chose. And to take those items at those rates no matter the condition. $250 drill with a damaged power cable. Junk VCR with toys jammed inside of it. $1 each. Desk Lamps, electrical shavers, power toothbrush, $0.50 each. Always scrap for me. Floor lamps, small appliances (microwave, toaster…) $1.00 each. Etc Doa handheld video games can be fixed and flip from my 25č for $5 or more. Sometimes much more. $50 for pocket football. I opens up and swapped the wire on that drill and sold it for $100. Health care and beauty items will have real junk boards or real high end. Lamps tend to give me real nice brass, copper, stainless.
Tinker shops and corner computer shops are another great source. Approach and offer to haul junk for free. A fair many say yes first try. If not come back a week later and offer to pay to haul it. That’s why these posts on boardsort are useful. Look at the shop inventory. Carefully. Decide how much of 50 lbs would be steel and modern lower value stuff, vs high value old equipment. How many TVs you need to deal with for those 70’s era clock radios. Etc.
The key to making money by spending it is to find your local scrap yards, figure out their prices and how they sort levels of metals. Do they pay for stainless separate or is it just all steel. Is 302 and 316 sorted. Do they take “transformers” or do they have grades for electrical scrap. A TF from a microwave oven is worth more than a wall wart. Do they sort them.
Finally: Picking up scrap from the street trash is a multi-billion dollar practice in this country. It’s fierce and people protect their routes. Be kind. You can make friends in street scrap if you negotiate. I’ll take a and leave b for you situations. Never never fight. I’ve heard from friends of being shot at and know one person who was shot. It’s extremely rare but if the guy in the box truck says go away, best to go away. “I’m first” causes problems. I’ve face a knife blade or pipe more than once. But It’s extremely rare. Be civil. Most will even trade tips. (Out of room, floor stove a block over)!!!! I got a full 80s server tip in exchange for that. In larger suburban areas In time you’ll learn the post run hangouts where the scrappers hang out for lunch and discuss their hauls. Strange stories: a man chasing a scrapper 4 blocks over a bike he threw out with a garbage sticker on it, only to put it back on the curb the following week!
Learn local scrap rules and customs and you can do well with it. Most long term street scrappers have a selected commodity they’re after and leave most other things behind. I focus on electronics and appliances. But leave anything big that I can’t fix. I haven’t done routes in months but I still get an occasional text when someone finds something for me. One couple even picks it up and gives it to me later for a small price.
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