# Opening A Scrap Yard/Metal Recyclig Company.



## Tomac1 (Oct 15, 2012)

Hey forum members,

Fist: No negativity, I can and will do this, if you can help, please do and thank you in advance. 
Donnie Downers get of my page now. I can do this, shut ur pie holes. Believe in yourself!!!


Financialy :I recently inherited a little under 2 million dollars from family members. 

My experience: I used to be a scrapper on the other end, I collected from individuals, sold to recyclers. 
I hung out at a scrap yard, learned the basics, buddy owned the company, we're no longer friends, or I'd be asking him all this. 
I've refined catalytic converter PGMs, small scale, in my garage. 

Question: I have 2 million about to work with, what is my course of action from here. 

Here is what I know.

I need a General Recyclers License in the state of Texas. (No problem, my friend is a Texas Senator)
Permits from local authorities. (No problem, my buddy is friends with the mayor)
I need a physical location with a warehouse in a appropriately zoned district. 
I need scales, etc....I know all that stuff, I'm familiar with day to day operations. 

The kicker! Who do I sell the stuff to???? I have no connections to help me in this area? Who and what companies buy scrap form scrap yards. 
scrap yards???

Next: How do I sell it, I want hold on to the stuff, selling only when the market is strongly favoring sellers. 
At lease that's what my buddy did. Where do you go to watch trends in metal prices, I know technical analysis of charts, 
just need to know where the charts are for this market. 

Help please.


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## etack (Oct 15, 2012)

If you really want to do this try to find one for sale. Starting fresh is expensive and 2 million won't go far. 

This reminds me of a joke about a farmer that won the lottery.

Jack, you just won ten million dollars. What are you going to do now?

Well, Bill I'm gonna farm it till it runs out.

What I would do is get into the liquidation business first and get scrap for cheap. when you have a lot of scrap to play with send out inquiries to mills and see if you have what they need in the right quantities.

Eric


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## butcher (Oct 16, 2012)

Fist: No negativity, I can and will do this, if you can help, please do and thank you in advance. 
Donnie Downers get of my page now. I can do this, shut ur pie holes. Believe in yourself!!!

Ur is not a word.


This is funny you wish to start a business with money given to you, you do not want to hear the negative side, but want advice, and you do not have a market for your business.

With that kind of thinking, I would save my money, and make sure I had a market before beginning, be willing to hear the negative side of business, like most businesses fail, and why my ideas have a good chance of not working, so that I could take another look at my plans, and make adjustments to the plan, this is not meant to be negative but I will shut me pie whole anyway.

On the positive side you can put on rose-colored glasses and just throw money at it and see if that works.

Don Down


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## nickvc (Oct 16, 2012)

Tomac1 you have had a piece of luck even if it came through the loss of family members.
My advice for what it's worth is very simple, start small use all those contacts you have to help locate business and don't try to run before you can even crawl. Take an amount of that money say 1/4 million and put the rest away somewhere safe to make money for you as you work at your plan, the truth is that if you can't make that 1/4 million work for you and make money then the rest will soon drop into the same pit and will be gone forever. Two million in reality is not a lot of money but to earn it would be very hard for most people so don't waste it chasing a losing proposition, there are many cases here in the UK and no doubt on your side of the pond of lottery winners who decide to go into business without any clue of how it all really works and lose everything in a matter of years. Take your time do your due diligence, learn how the business works in every aspect,if your careful the truth is you probably dont have to work to make a fortune but just a living and you can enjoy the building of a business ut make it self financing and don't keep throwing money at it if it isn't working, be man enough to admit your mistakes and walk.
I wish you luck and hope you achieve your dreams but use caution.


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## jeneje (Oct 16, 2012)

Be Smart, put the money in the bank, take a vacation and enjoy life. Forget the scrap business.
Ken


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## kurt (Oct 16, 2012)

Tomac1 said:


> Here is what I know.
> 
> I need a General Recyclers License in the state of Texas. (No problem, my friend is a Texas Senator)
> Permits from local authorities. (No problem, my buddy is friends with the mayor)
> ...



Thats the small easy low cost stuff --- if you are going to try to run a scrap YARD - keep in mind that scrap yards work on VERY narrow margins - pennies, nickels & dimes per pound over what they pay - they make their money on dealing in VOLUME - that means heavy equipment to handle it (unload & load it) cut it &/or crush it & haul it - that means fuel & maintance cost - that means employee's that can do maintances, run heavy equipment as well as tear down & sort scrap & the tools to work on heavy equipment

To pay for all of that you have to beat the compitition in what you pay for scrap & that means you have to handle a larger volume of scrap (by a lot) to get a better price when you sell - & you have to do that EVERY month - that means you need to get "large" commercial accounts that you get scrap from because you wont get the volume just from the general public - that means LOTs of money to pay for large volume commercial accounts - every month - that means you can't hold on to your scrap & sell "only" when the market is up because you need cash to "flow" (what goes out must come in)

To sell & get TOP DOLLOR you need to sell to the "big boys" & they wont even talk to you unless you can provide them with LARGE volume & do so EVERY month

and that is all just to start with

I see 2 mil gone in a heart beat

If I were you - I would look into doing some kind of "cash for gold" (& other PMs) thing --- far less money to get started - other then the money to buy the PMs - which is also going to be much less then needed to start a scrap YARD - & the only employee you need - is you

Kurt


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## patnor1011 (Oct 16, 2012)

And I would say - Go for it.
You will have fun for a while.
They are not hard earned money or savings so it wont matter much if you lose them. 
Mainly if you want to invest them in something when you have no idea how it works.


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## joem (Oct 16, 2012)

patnor1011 said:


> And I would say - Go for it.
> You will have fun for a while.
> They are not hard earned money or savings so it wont matter much if you lose them.
> Mainly if you want to invest them in something when you have no idea how it works.


 Yeah go with what patnor says. But I don't understand why you would work hard all your life and when the time comes to take it easy you decide to work 10 times harder. You have had a few good comments and you have not responded. You say you know a lot of people but are they actually your friends and helped you when you were down? Do you think they want to just hand out environmentally unfriendly licenses because you walk in and say " I have 2 million dollars"? If you did actually get all this money then it has made you very defensive and you first comments are telling people "Donnie Downers get of my page now. I can do this, shut ur pie holes" Not a good way to ask for advice and very disrepectful to the forum and I think it was a way to stir up a controversy. I doubt your story, it smells of another unwanted member who shall not be named. This is not your page you are only allowed to type here. Come back in a month when your money runs out and ask again how to make money getting precious metals from ewaste because you need the cash and I'll sell you my guide.


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## grance (Oct 16, 2012)

I have been runing my own very small business for 3 years now and let me tell you it has been very hard a few times but the more work you put in the more you get out. We takein Copper, Aluminum (no cans) and e-scrap. We process the precious metals out of the e scrap. The copper and aluminum we cast into ingots for out buyer. The copper gets purifyed first though a E-cell. Its a massive amount of work but its still kind of fun and pays the bills. But these were my hobbys for years befor and then it kinda just became what it is today. I wish I had found this fourm befor we had started


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## wavecrazed (Oct 16, 2012)

For finding contacts advertise your business like the yellow pages or a web site. The buyers will find you. Invest in some real estate buy buying some property.


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## acpeacemaker (Oct 17, 2012)

My thoughts. I honestly think your quite transparent. Got two million? Get a financial advisor and plan a decent retirement. Or get a good attorney, because most likely spouting off like you are someone will see you as their paycheck. Truth is if all your so-called contacts come into play it will be way worse when you make one mad.


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## grance (Oct 17, 2012)

acpeacemaker said:


> Got two million? Get a financial advisor and plan a decent retirement.



Thats what I would do for sure


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## Smack (Oct 17, 2012)

You want sound business advice? Ok here goes: Find someone successful and copy them. Do you have a business plan yet? If not you should get started a.s.a.p.


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## goldenchild (Oct 18, 2012)

My advice? Pay off all of your outstanding debts and go soak up some rays on a beach somewhere. Enjoy retirement.


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## Irons2 (Oct 18, 2012)

If I had 2 Million, the first thing I would buy is a one-way plane ticket to Costa Rica, and spend the rest of my days enjoying Life.


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## Dan Dement (Oct 18, 2012)

Take the $2 mil and put it NuStar which pays 8.5%. Take the $170,000 a year and do whatever you want. Invest in a Scrap Yard and kiss it good bye! Just my advice!

Good Luck,

Dan


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