joubjonn said:
what's it pay out? .10 a lb I'm guessing.
I sort the power supply's separate, I have about 20.
should I sort the laptop chargers separate or does that pay the same as coated wires?
Snip off the cords (and ends) from the chargers and the wires off the power supplies you should then have three piles
1. Wiring and Cabling, ranges from $0.80 to $0.95 per lb depending on the copper markets
2. Laptop chargers, my place considers them PC Transformers or something like that, think they paid out around $0.15 per lb
3. Power Supplies, typically I get around $0.15 to $0.20 per lb, they get graded as copper baring motors or something close
Remember the more you sort the more you make, that said there is a fine line between sorting and wasting your time, ie. stripping out copper coils from power supplies or transformers. For example, I discovered that while I got say $.90 per lb for wiring, and if I stripped them down to the copper I would get say $2.85 per lb for #2 copper (my yards refuse to grade them as #1 bright unless it's copper out of home wiring for example, annoying yes) BUT once all was said and done for a sample size of 10 lb of power cables the weight went down to around 40% to 50% of the original if memory serves. So it ended up being along the lines of $9.00 for the raw cables, or $11.50 for the #2 copper, also mind you it takes a good chunk of time to strip that many wires (outer sheath as well as the sheath on the inner wires).
So as my example shows it's not always worth the time it takes to strip down items farther then what I have listed above. Yes you may make a few more bucks but the reward for the effort isn't always there. Also if you want to get into volume type E-Waste recycling time is money when it comes to turn around of the raw goods. Personally I see the scrap I take out to the yards as the frosting on the E-waste cake, and allows me cash to buy tools and chemicals I needs to process the actual cake (hope the analogy hasn't been taken too far yet), that being of course gold bearing e-waste.
Then you get into the discussions of if it's better to process certain boards or sell them as is, but we can save that for another time.
. however I have a ton of empty cases that i have to get rid of.
