# escrap profit sharing?



## justinm001 (Jan 5, 2018)

Hey all, been reading a lot but first time poster. I run an IT company that specializes in selling used equipment, mainly enterprise gear like servers and networking. we get about 3-5 pallets of scrap equipment a month and have no idea what to do with it all. We began breaking it down and selling as escrap to a local yard, but we always seem to get standard desktop pricing for everything. Server should have 5x as much precious metals than desktops, especially the high end ones we usually get, as well as we seem to be getting motherboard pricing for networking boards that have tons of chips and goldfingers on them. 

I'm not sure I have the time/patience/experience in refining myself but have seen some members sharing in the profit from the scrap. Is there a group or set of people I should look for that we could maybe dropoff/pickup/ship all the hardware, then after they refine we get a percent of the profit? Also what percentage would be fair for all and how would this compare to standard escraping? I'm in Columbus Ohio


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## anachronism (Jan 5, 2018)

justinm001 said:


> . Server should have 5x as much precious metals than desktops, especially the high end ones we usually get, as well as we seem to be getting motherboard pricing for networking boards that have tons of chips and goldfingers on them.



Hi Justin

Nice to meet you. Where do you get the information above from please?

Jon


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## silversaddle1 (Jan 5, 2018)

Hi Justin, welcome to the forum.

This is one question that's right in my wheelhouse. 

You need to find a buyer that deals in e-scrap. Your local yard is not going to be able to pay on the sort like a e-scrap company will.

Then you are going to have to learn how to sort. There are 5 different common grades of motherboards right now.

High Grade server (Dual Socket)
Low Grade Server (Dual Socket)
High grade Motherboard (Large socket or Slot)
Low Grade Motherboard (Small Socket)
P-4 steel clip Motherboard

Then you will have to have a sort for all the other grades of boards, cards, backplanes, etc. Yes, telecom with high chip population will pay better than finger cards, but they must be sorted correctly.

Of course the memory and CPU's will also have to be sorted by grade to earn the most profit.

Then you need a place for the wire, ribbon wire, power supplies, and finally the steel.

Bottom line is in order to get the best money out of your scrap, you will have to devote a lot of man hours + square footage to see a real profit. I can't see 3-5 pallets a month being worth the time invested for a company like you have.

You mention sending the stuff to someone to do all the work and send you a check. Well after shipping, labor, and overhead, there won't be much left to even make it worth your while to go that route.

The profit margin is so slim these days as the PMC of the scrap continues to decline.

Bottom line is either spend the money to process it yourself correctly, or maybe find someone who will haul it off for nothing and you can focus on your main business of buying and re-selling devices.


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## snoman701 (Jan 5, 2018)

My experience is similar to SilverSaddle's, his operation is bigger and older, but likely has similar overhead costs...and we are really at the bottom of the e-scrap recycler food chain. Meaning, family sourced labor, low liability, low overhead, no employees, no unemployment insurance, no workmans comp insurance (on my part, I imagine SS does have this).

The sort grades are dependent upon who you sell it to, and it takes a while to learn, and even then, it changes as people learn more.

Your scrap yard that you are currently selling to is average...they have one set price, or possibly two. Computer board vs power supply board. One of the local yards pays $1.00 / lb on computer boards, and around $.07 / lb on "other boards". They sell at an average of $2.30-$2.50/lb. There loads are a pretty good mix, and if I were to take a 600 lb gaylord and just sort it, to sell to another packager, I imagine I could make 0.20-0.30/lb just through my knowledge in sorting. For me, it's not worth it right now...going through 600 lbs of boards takes a bit of time.

Now, if you are being paid $1.00 / lb, my suggestion is to align with someone such as cashforcomputerscrap or boardsort, or a smaller packager such as myself or silversaddle. I routinely pay a bit more than the scrap yard for mixed board lots (no power supply or brown boards), and do ok simply sorting and reselling to another larger packager. If I have to take the stuff apart, I will still pay on the boards, but keep the extras such as power supply, case, hard drive, etc as labor costs. 

As for profit sharing...no. You have three options.

1a)You sell it locally and get paid immediately, no real sort.
1b)You sell it not so locally and get paid after sort.
2)You pay up front to have someone process it for you, and get a little bit more than you'd get if you used 1b...you do not get "all of the gold". 
3)You collect multiple 50,000# loads per month, and invest a lot. 

Given your quantity, I'd suggest 1b. While I'd love honest money, you are about an hour out of my range. I can vouch for cashforcomputerscrap. They don't list the phone number, but send them an email stating the quantity you have. Mario will set up a freight pickup and just take it out of your payment. ACH deposit costs $10, check is free, paypal is 2.9%. I recommend knowing the weight of your boards. There has been one mistake in my time doing business with him, and it was immediately rectified. I don't get the idea that the sort can be anything other than honest...it's hard enough to get guys to sort reliably, it would be that much harder to teach them to do it crookedly. I could come down and show you how to sort so you can know the minimum you'll get paid, or just drive a load out to him and he'll show you enough to get you close.


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## etack (Jan 5, 2018)

I’ve been to Ohio Drop Off and sold to them they are in Columbus. Also they will buy it whole too. Make sure you get the online price if you go. 

Or ship to Mario at cashforcomputerscrap.com 

For me the shippings not worth it. I’m in Dayton. 

Eric


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## justinm001 (Jan 7, 2018)

anachronism said:


> justinm001 said:
> 
> 
> > . Server should have 5x as much precious metals than desktops, especially the high end ones we usually get, as well as we seem to be getting motherboard pricing for networking boards that have tons of chips and goldfingers on them.
> ...



Jon,
Rack mounted servers are built to provide the most amount of processing in the smallest amount of space, They also are usually 2-4 sockets and utilize much more quality components like solid copper heatsinks instead of aluminum or copper/aluminum you see in desktops. They usually have 2 risers and many have multiple other sockets and slots, (goldfingers and goldpins) Most components are modular and are designed to easily hot swap or cold swap so they have more pins/sockets for redundant power (2-4 power supplies) as well as backplanes for HD's and other boards. There's a reason desktops are 300-800 new and servers are 3000-100,000. They also only have a 1.5-6" by 18" intake for all the cooling and have to have room for the hard drives, cards, ports and power supplies which requires much better thermal dynamics and heatsinks for various components. Also there's BMC controllers and Raid controllers that connect and monitor multiple components which usually have various models and need to be hot swapped and upgraded. Usually desktops have 2-4 memory slots, and servers have 6-8 per socket some even have more.


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## justinm001 (Jan 7, 2018)

We actually tried ohiodropoff a couple weeks ago and started with 44 desktops which took about 5 hours to setup, break down and sort and we made close to $250 (about $5 per desktop or $50 per hour), They were spot on with what we weighed and compared to their prices, think they mis-sorted some of our wiring and we should of been about $20 more.

We're going to do the same with about 50 servers and compare soon, but the issue is they pay the same rate for motherboards which doesn't very fair. We're also going to test some networking as well as cabling.

I have no idea what to do with things like keyboards/mice so we've been tossing most. 

I was hoping there was a refining provider that instead of paying us $2 or whatever per pound would refine and split the proceeds. This way the refiner gets more per pound and so would we. We could save up a ton of them then figure it out.


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## anachronism (Jan 7, 2018)

Justin

Your logic doesn't work with your comparisons between the gold value of servers and PCs. The server board is a slightly higher grade but the ram is the same and the procs are the same. Your board is only worth a few percent more than old PC board. It weighs more too, and there's your uplift but it's not 5 times. 

You might get lucky and find someone willing to profit share on a tonne but it's not likely and PC board trades for more than it refines to, so be careful.

Jon


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## snoman701 (Jan 7, 2018)

anachronism said:


> Justin
> 
> Your logic doesn't work with your comparisons between the gold value of servers and PCs. The server board is a slightly higher grade but the ram is the same and the procs are the same. Your board is only worth a few percent more than old PC board. It weighs more too, and there's your uplift but it's not 5 times.
> 
> ...



Can you elaborate? Are you talking about motherboards, or just blank PC boards?


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## etack (Jan 8, 2018)

If It were me I would pull all cards and ram and sell it as complete computers. They pay .25# for complete computers and to me RAM and cards dont count towards that. anyway 44 Comps weighed 500-800# no real time in them and they pay near the same.

sell them the cards and save the ram. It stores well and can be cashed out any time.

they may also buy the stuff you toss too.

I'm not affiliated with them these are just my feelings on spending my time. I've separated and stripped my fair share of Copms. and if they paid that near me its a no brainer for me.



Eric


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## cosmetal (Jan 8, 2018)

etack said:


> If It were me I would pull all cards and ram and sell it as complete computers. They pay .25# for complete computers and to me RAM and cards dont count towards that. anyway 44 Comps weighed 500-800# no real time in them and they pay near the same.
> 
> sell them the cards and save the ram. It stores well and can be cashed out any time.
> 
> ...



Eric,

I'm just asking for clarification out of curiosity, not trying to find fault.

You say they pay $0.25/lb. for complete computers. My idea of a complete computer is one that is untouched by any recovery effort. 

Ohio Drop Off will pay $0.25/lb. for a computer missing it's cards and RAM?

Thanks!

James


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## anachronism (Jan 8, 2018)

To be honest guys if I was buying complete computers and they arrived missing RAM and cards I would be sending them back. I've run the maths on "chassis with motherboards"as we call those part stripped units and it just doesn't work at the prices quoted. 

complete computers = complete computers.


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## mls26cwru (Jan 8, 2018)

anachronism said:


> To be honest guys if I was buying complete computers and they arrived missing RAM and cards I would be sending them back. I've run the maths on "chassis with motherboards"as we call those part stripped units and it just doesn't work at the prices quoted.



My numbers are the same as well... whenever I do a site visit, I always make a point of telling them that ram,cards, HD, mohterboard have to be included and I always verify and do spot checks as I am loading.


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## justinm001 (Jan 8, 2018)

It sounds like no one refines motherboards here and I basically have to send it to an escrap company and sell the server boards for the same as desktop boards. I'd much rather have a guy that I can send all the boards, have them self refine and sell, then we get a fair-share of the profits. It would be better to support a smaller business than some larger company who doesn't value our relationship.


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## FrugalRefiner (Jan 8, 2018)

justinm001 said:


> It sounds like no one refines motherboards here and I basically have to send it to an escrap company and sell the server boards for the same as desktop boards. I'd much rather have a guy that I can send all the boards, have them self refine and sell, then we get a fair-share of the profits. It would be better to support a smaller business than some larger company who doesn't value our relationship.


The problem with that is that refining whole boards is not viable for a smaller business. Certain businesses are only profitable when done on a large scale. It's known as economies of scale.

As far as selling server boards for the same as desktop boards, you may need to look for another buyer. I don't deal in ewaste much, so I can't offer any recommendations. But, here too, economies of scale applies. If you only generate 100 boards a month, you'll probably have to sell to someone local, as shipping small quantities can eat up any potential profits. If you generate 100 tons per month, you can shop for a buyer farther away because shipping a semi-trailer load is cheaper per pound than shipping flat rate boxes through the post office.

Dave


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## snoman701 (Jan 8, 2018)

Justin,

I invested a reasonable amount of time in my post in hopes that you would read it to develop a greater understanding of the recycling community. 

If you've got a gaylord of boards that you need processed, let me know, I'll come pick them up then I'll pay you based upon the load. If there are pieces that I personally refine (namely gold cap chips, high end connectors, BGA chips that are individually worth more than the board they are on, or otherwise, I can pay post processing if you desire, but it's also easier to pay up front for me) But, with all of this said, I'm selling to the same buyer you could take advantage of, which is why I wrote the post above. I believe in transparency, and don't feel I should take advantage of something which you can, unless I am offering a service in the process.

-Jacob


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## etack (Jan 8, 2018)

Yeah OK....

You might convince me that RAM belongs(1 stick) but PCI cards no they don't. As long as it is a working computer its complete. 

Eric


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## anachronism (Jan 9, 2018)

justinm001 said:


> It sounds like no one refines motherboards here and I basically have to send it to an escrap company and sell the server boards for the same as desktop boards. I'd much rather have a guy that I can send all the boards, have them self refine and sell, then we get a fair-share of the profits. It would be better to support a smaller business than some larger company who doesn't value our relationship.



Larger companies who has foresight do value small customers. Admittedly a lot of them don't however there are the ones who do. One of the toughest things I had to come to terms with when I started my journey in refining ewaste was the fact that quantities I saw as large, were in fact tiny. It's all about climbing the rungs of a ladder.

When I was your size the best I could hope for was getting a reasonable buy price on my boards- nobody was really interested in profit sharing so I sold them outright. As I got larger I managed to get better buyout pricing. That moved onto the occasional profit share deal, as I jumped up another rung of the ladder and then the next rung of the ladder was dealing with enough to refine ourselves. 

Whilst I might have always wanted to be a rung above where I was, I just got on with the process of growing as a method of getting there but I always accepted the current position as being fair and applicable to my current circumstances. The part within my control was growing and receiving the "next level" benefits. 

Server boards should be at a somewhat higher price than PC boards- if they are not then you need to spread your wings and find a better buyer. Home refining of boards is a waste of time and money. You won't get all the values out and the time taken and associated costs just cannot compete with one of the main refineries no matter what anyone tries to tell you. 

I hope that helps in some way. 

Jon


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## nickvc (Jan 9, 2018)

If you spend some time reading here on the forum you will find that no one refines whole boards as is.
There are companies that will smelt boards but that usually needs large quantities to make it interesting for them as the costs of the plant needed to do so is very large due mainly to environmental constraints.
Your best bet may be to do what most others do and cherry pick the scrap and sell on whatever is left and at some later date either learn the processing yourself or pick someone to toll refine the items for you but again quantity will be need3d to make it worth while.


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## everydayisalesson (Jan 9, 2018)

Hey Justin, I too am in Columbus and deal with Ohio drop off. Everyone here has given you honest advice. What you are talking about can be done only with large refineries. If you have the space to store it then that would be the way to go. I hope to become a board buyer in the future but I am guessing I will be offering about the same prices that are available to you now. I will tell you this, you have to have everything sorted and ask for the internet pricing when you go in or you will be treated like a regular Joe.

Last thing, if you don't want to mess with the old computers, I will give you $3.00 each for complete units. If I find they have had RAM pulled I normally give a $1.75 a unit. If you are interested just send me a PM and we can talk more.

Mike


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## silversaddle1 (Jan 9, 2018)

Contact a buyer at IRT. They will either buy out or refine for you. I don't know what the min amount of boards you need to refine, but they tell me I can expect another 20% profit if I choose the refine route. Drawback is a 45 day wait for payment. And if i'm not mistaken, you do not need to sort anything if refining, just load up your boxes.


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