Question for E-waste recyclers

[acpeacemaker]

I know of a recycler close by that throws all of their unwanteds in a 30 yard roll off. Most of the pcs are always stripped clean except for the floppy drives, usb, and the occasional cd-rom/dvd, ide cables etc... Could this be because they don't have time for it? Maybe not setup for this particular rest left. Sometimes it looks as though it was rushingly stripped and then what ever is left oh well. -Andrew

 

[rasanders22]

Im not a professional and i just do it it in my spare time. But IDE/HDD cables often have gold plated pins. I have found some that arnt plated though. They are not exatcly easy to pull apart which might be why they get scrapped. USB connectors typically have gold but they are hard to pull apart. If someone was doing this for a living i would guess the gold in them isnt worth the time to pull them apart. If I was him I would take all the gol dplated material thats too small/hard to retrieve, and put it on ebay.

 

[acpeacemaker]

One thing I was curious of was about the floppy drives. They're all plastic or metal. I was wondering if the metal blocks in these were aluminum like hard drives? Most I've seen are are several shades of grey but just as light as the next.

 

[glorycloud]

It could be the ROI for the time they wanted to invest.
They stripped out all the good parts for resale or recycling
and have determined that the time and effort required
to strip the rest wasn't worth it for them.

I can be lazy that way as well. I used to have a guy come and pick up
my "empty" cases that may have still had what you described left
in them because it required a different bit on the old electric drill
and I had already harvested everything that I wanted to spend the
time to remove. He would come and haul off 50+ cases for free
and he was glad that I would leave him some "meat on the bone"
so he could pick around at it and take out what was worth more
than the nine or ten cents a pound he may have received for the
steel price.

I got the $75.00 or $175.00 motherboard, etc. for resale and the CD\FDD
just didn't interest me. It's all about perspective I have found in life. 8)

 

[patnor1011]

Magnet is your friend.

 

[acpeacemaker]

Magnet is your friend.

Yeah I tried the magnet and it didn't pick them up. The grey shades remind me of old lead flashing back in the day when I was a roofer. They don't have a bending quality though.

 

[reflector]

i toss mixed floppy/cdrom drives in a bin and sell them to a local recycler for aluminum content, i get $0.18 per lb

i get $0.90 - $1.10 per lb for mixed cables/wires for copper content
(i could clip the connector ends off to get the gold connectors and still get the same rate on the wire)

 

[glondor]

I believe the grey bones are cast aluminum.

 

[wrecker45]

or zinc die cast :mrgreen:

 

[glondor]

hmmmmm could be....

 

[wisconsinjimmy]

New guy and hope I can help, the way to test for aluminum is the magnet to start with, no stick then take a few shavings off the scrap and put a torch to it magnesium will burn. HDD look like aluminum but very well could be stainless, put the scrap to a grinder and look for sparks which would indicate stainless. Before you toss shiny aluminum into the pile look at scrap prices lately stainless has been more then aluminum and you might want to toss the shiny into the stainless pile.

 

[rasanders22]

Stainless is a lot heavier than Al. If it is a reasonable sized chunck, like a HDD body, it would be well over a pound if stainless, less than a pound if Al. What ive found is that the body is usually Al, and the top, the part you peel off, is stainless.

 

[wrecker45]

hdd bodys alum. some floppys zinc die cast...jim

 

[pinwheel]

If it is metal there is no way they should be throwing these away or selling unfinished business for steel. I would call that lazy work. It only takes 3 minutes to fully strip a complete pc.