Scrappy Z said:
Since it's been over a year from this last post, I was wondering how well thing are running for you. Could you give a short update as to where you are in terms of amount your running and percent of recovery? I am looking to do the same thing here in Iowa but still need to get up to speed on what I'm allowed to process and if there may be limits to amounts. What state department should I be talking with? If any. Any info would be greatly appreciated.
Mcnew32(Ag) said:
Smack, i have done some digging into regulations, permits and laws for my state and local area. I will not be doing this as a business at first because of all these regulations I will be processing the material on personal private property for the time being. Until I get a handle on yeilds for various types of materials. Once I establish these yeilds then I can factor in the business model. I alone just through marketing and word of mouth can aquire quite a bit of material and average a 40% profit on everything I get not including all the materials I keep to process later for myself (i.e. Ram, CPUs, connectors, fingers, BGA chips and so forth. I have a full time job on top of this which makes it had to expand to where I want to be because of my job being too benificial to quit.
Kazamir, I will be processing standard electronic scrap such as circuit boards, wiring, and computer components. The equipment that I am researching can run 250lbs of circuit boards and hour. As far as the yield still working that.
Here's my take, since I'm in the same boat, but a little more motivated since I am unemployed. I've been unemployed for a year...I really have no desire to become employed again. Not for a lack of desire to work either.
Establishing yields is not the first stage...the business model has to be first. What service can you offer? What are you doing? What is your source of metal? Based upon that source of metal, what can flipping it to a packager offer you in returns? How much product do you have to flip to a packager to make a living?
Lets do the same thing, with karat scrap, since everyone likes to say how great it is to process karat scrap. Remember...I'm unemployed.
I just sold 2 ounces of karat scrap (accepted as anything with 35% or better gold content) for 98% of melt on the gold to pay my house payment for three months. It was a mix of sponge and a couple of rings which I didn't care to refine (what's the point). This was found gold...literally, I found a ring in the middle of the street that had been run over multiple times. Sponge was from a bunch of assays I've done. I had planned on using it towards equipment, but, other things have taken my time away from the business, so I had to sell gold.
Anyway, lets assume one needs to make a wage of $50,000 per annum, net taxable income. This is a liveable wage, as long as you don't have too much debt following you around, which I do. That's $4200 a month. AKA, 3 1/3 ounces of gold.
So, at a 40% profit margin, you have to process $10,500 of material per month. Looking at say, metal socket motherboards...which are the easiest thing to get. That's 5,000 lbs of them per month. Ever seen 5,000 lbs of them? Anyway...at 250 pounds an hour, you have to be grinding, shredding, hammering, and sifting 20 hours a month. Not too bad, except who's going to do it? Are you going to do all of the grinding, shredding,hammering, sifting, etc? Then, you've got a concentrate. Are you going to smelt? Sell Dore? Sell karat scrap?
Now...lets forget e-scrap. Lets concentrate on karat scrap. You need $4200 a month. Lets say you can somehow get a bunch of karat scrap at a 25% profit margin by..well, running a pawn shop. That's $16,800 in material you have to purchase. That's 1/2 an ounce of gold per day.
It's possible...but your business plan HAS to come first. You have to realize the numbers you are going to have to work with, long before you start to worry about what a chip refines out at. You need to know how much income you need...then you can look at product, and try to determine how much product based upon really rough numbers that are readily available on the forum.
All I'm saying is that what you'll figure out is that you have to move a lot of product. Develop a business plan around moving a lot of product, and whether a board refines out at $2 or $3 doesn't matter as much...you can just adjust the amount of product you can move.
Oh...and the EPA and DEQ, or whatever your state Alphabet agency is called...do your homework in the business plan stage. Nobody on this forum can tell you how to be legit with them, it's state and locality specific.