I think the truth about law is you can only get proper justice if your either rich or very poor where costs are paid by the state, the average Joe can't afford to take on big companies or rich individuals not with the costs of lawyers/ attorneys and or other professional advisers so many of us have to backdown or go bust trying to get justice, I'm not blaming the lawyers per se,as they need to eat too, but the system, I guess some things never change and never will.
Scrapping computers
- Thread starter Dave86
- Start date
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Seems like our "systems" are getting more backwards all of the time, too many foxes running the hen houses.
Yup, we need a reset button. There has been a war on the middle class for over half a century. They are biting the hand that feeds and I'm afraid I will be long gone and won't get to participate when that hand turns to a fist.
MMFJ
Well-known member
I'd like to get back to the topic, as I think many are interested in an 'answer' (although several of the posts here make it pretty clear there is no simple one - but, then, that is just life and business!)
So, I focused my time and effort on my core business - what I knew I could make happen myself, and also on building my TEAM around me that could do the other things I would need. Now, don't take that sentence lightly - it is one of the things I see that many people don't do and that is their crucial point of failure.
No one person can do it all - I don't care who you are (or even who you think you are...), we all need a support system around us to survive (the nice thing is that anyone that could actually prove this wrong would never be reading this post as there is no way to get on the internet without support! :shock:
Anyway, building a TEAM is important.
Just yesterday, a guy came to me with 50 lbs of motherboards (old Pentium style). He showed me a bottle of pins he has picked out, thinking he will process them himself (don't we all start that way?). After I spoke with him a bit, it was clear that he knew nothing of the method, and had no support for doing it - and the worst thing was, he didn't WANT any help or advise (I was going to recommend the forum to him, but he told me he already "knew" what to do....). I offered him $150 for the bottle (about 5 lbs of pins, with several bits of 'trash' in there - I estimated there would be about $200 - $300 of gold and hopefully more, then after I paid to ship it to a refiner and they take out 20% - 25%, I would get my money back and likely a small profit. He told me that he was just going to process it......
We talked about the other boards that I buy and he told me he had a "backyard full of that stuff", yet, again, was hesitant to sell, though he admitted that he really needed some cash - ??????
My point here is that without a TEAM, this guy has now become a HOARDER and has started to "love" his piles of trash! With a team in place (i.e., you already know where and what you are going to sell L O N G before you buy it, so you don't get caught up in hoarding garbage.
Taking the time to think about what you are getting into with computers (btw, there is a LOT of scrap metal and plastic to deal with - you MUST have an answer to that as it piles up very, very quickly!) and how you are going to get out of it is really important.
This is what we are doing here and it is paying the bills (which answers your 'is it profitable' question - though it must be clear by all the folks on the forum that do it there must be some profit in it...). What you need is a BUSINESS PLAN, which will tell you, up front, if it is profitable or not. This is simple enough to do, just make an outline that asks a lot of questions, then answer them. You have already started that, but as several pointed out in this thread, you need to take a small sample and find out answers for yourself.
For us, we focused on the question "Can BUYING ewaste can be profitable?", and built our business model around it. The questions we ask in building this model were based more on "How much time, money and effort does it take to go around, collecting all the 'free' stuff from dozens of houses per week?" and "What is the MINIMUM that we would be willing to go pick up and at what distance?", etc.
We found that simply paying folks to bring it to us was much more cost effective (in gas and drive time) and that we could do other things in the time it took to drive there and back (like tear down a dozen computers or something), being a LOT more productive overall. Of course, on a small scale (which is what most people seem to want, though I don't know if it is possible to keep the interest up as you get small piles of stuff everywhere {there's that hoarding again...} and it just never seems enough to sell.....) going around to all those houses and picking up their trash may work for some.
Here's a super-sharp tip, from one of the LARGE donation centers that I work with.
The lady in charge told me that they used to go around, door to door, collecting all the 'donation' stuff until they tried a central donation location and found that the quality of items went WAY up, and their overall profit margin skyrocketed.
Just think about it....
I know for our business, we found the exact same thing, and it didn't take long to see it! On the few times we tried going to people's houses, all they have is TRASH, but when we 'force' them to bring it to us, they only bring the GOOD stuff. And, lately, we have only been focusing on the MOST VALUABLE stuff, which has brought us a lot more profit, and a lot less work (just like someone said about 'work less, make more' - I've found it to always be true - and I'm not ashamed to admit I prefer that lifestyle!)
As for what to pay for any one computer, we found that a price PER POUND has done wonders for us. It not only eliminates the question about "well, MY computer is so special and it has this, this, this, blah, blah, blah....." (because, if it has "more" it will WEIGH more..), it also eliminates having to deal with folks that have only one computer (or our worst enemy, someone with only ONE "broken" laptop or cell phone they want to sell for big$$$$$!) - what time wasters! We came up with a solution that works for us, estimating the time it takes to tear a computer apart, what is likely inside, what a 'typical' computer weighs and what we will be able to sell the parts for, etc. (yes, a bit of a spreadsheet and business plan!).
We created a webpage that goes out and grabs our buyers pricing as well as the current price of gold and silver, then through a special formula (grabbed some numbers from the air and started massaging them until it worked out....), our "buy price" now is based on many factors and changes constantly (which makes it difficult to quote prices on the phone - another thing that 'time wasters' don't like, which is good for our business!)
Those with big loads see that we are serious about moving their product, and are willing to give them the best price possible at any time. We have one guy that just brings in a pickup truck load of stuff and says "Give me $1/lb for the lot", even though he has a big mix of boards. The first time he came, we looked through the load, piece by piece (which took nearly two hours...) and found that to be a very good average. He knows his business and was looking for a good partner to buy from him - he found one!
One last thought on the 'yah-yah' garbage going on in this thread - the only way any business grows is by COMPETITION, which is, typically, wrought from previous employees and/or others that have viewed your success and tried to copy it. Sometimes, that puts the original company out of business, but, as I see it, that only happens because the original company forgot to continue to GROW and EXPAND their thinking (and/or services, etc.). This includes the folks we are selling our parts to - we constantly look for other buyers and if they don't keep up, we will go with the highest bidder (or at least try them once - recently we have given two other buyers a chance to win our business and we look forward to them proving it was a good decision!)
Anyone that doesn't embrace CHANGE is destined to failure.
We are a very typical example as we were facing company closure about a year ago. We looked at our business model, which had been working for many years, and saw that market conditions caused buyer changes, and our bottom line was nearly drained! We looked, long and hard, at how we might bring about something different and saw nothing in our current model that was very promising. So, we made a change and started dismantling computers (for years, we have thrown them away or donated them to charity - just getting rid of them as fast as possible!).
So far, it has worked well, as we are the 'only game in town' as far as buying ewaste.
Will someone else try to do it? Most likely. In fact, we look forward to it, as we believe our business model is strong and it would be near impossible to offer more than we do, which will continue to bring us the business, even though someone else may advertise more, etc. (which helps get the word out for us!) If we see they are taking business from us, then we just have to find a way to go grab some other 'piece of the pie' - embracing change...!
It all depends on how you face the world. You can do so with the LACK mentality ("there's not enough to go around") or with the PLENTY one ("there's more than enough, just what do I want to go grab"). I know which one I chose!
Dave86, I couldn't agree with you more. My situation is more of a 'no where to process', but then I even went so far as to try it a bit (out in the parking lot...) and quickly found that the most dangerous mix was ME and chemicals - of any sort!Dave86 said:
So, I focused my time and effort on my core business - what I knew I could make happen myself, and also on building my TEAM around me that could do the other things I would need. Now, don't take that sentence lightly - it is one of the things I see that many people don't do and that is their crucial point of failure.
No one person can do it all - I don't care who you are (or even who you think you are...), we all need a support system around us to survive (the nice thing is that anyone that could actually prove this wrong would never be reading this post as there is no way to get on the internet without support! :shock:
Anyway, building a TEAM is important.
Just yesterday, a guy came to me with 50 lbs of motherboards (old Pentium style). He showed me a bottle of pins he has picked out, thinking he will process them himself (don't we all start that way?). After I spoke with him a bit, it was clear that he knew nothing of the method, and had no support for doing it - and the worst thing was, he didn't WANT any help or advise (I was going to recommend the forum to him, but he told me he already "knew" what to do....). I offered him $150 for the bottle (about 5 lbs of pins, with several bits of 'trash' in there - I estimated there would be about $200 - $300 of gold and hopefully more, then after I paid to ship it to a refiner and they take out 20% - 25%, I would get my money back and likely a small profit. He told me that he was just going to process it......
We talked about the other boards that I buy and he told me he had a "backyard full of that stuff", yet, again, was hesitant to sell, though he admitted that he really needed some cash - ??????
My point here is that without a TEAM, this guy has now become a HOARDER and has started to "love" his piles of trash! With a team in place (i.e., you already know where and what you are going to sell L O N G before you buy it, so you don't get caught up in hoarding garbage.
Taking the time to think about what you are getting into with computers (btw, there is a LOT of scrap metal and plastic to deal with - you MUST have an answer to that as it piles up very, very quickly!) and how you are going to get out of it is really important.
The 'technical' terms is "E-WASTE DISMANTLER", and it is become a real 'fad' (1. because it is simple to do and 2. because it is rather fun, I think!)Dave86 said:
This is what we are doing here and it is paying the bills (which answers your 'is it profitable' question - though it must be clear by all the folks on the forum that do it there must be some profit in it...). What you need is a BUSINESS PLAN, which will tell you, up front, if it is profitable or not. This is simple enough to do, just make an outline that asks a lot of questions, then answer them. You have already started that, but as several pointed out in this thread, you need to take a small sample and find out answers for yourself.
For us, we focused on the question "Can BUYING ewaste can be profitable?", and built our business model around it. The questions we ask in building this model were based more on "How much time, money and effort does it take to go around, collecting all the 'free' stuff from dozens of houses per week?" and "What is the MINIMUM that we would be willing to go pick up and at what distance?", etc.
We found that simply paying folks to bring it to us was much more cost effective (in gas and drive time) and that we could do other things in the time it took to drive there and back (like tear down a dozen computers or something), being a LOT more productive overall. Of course, on a small scale (which is what most people seem to want, though I don't know if it is possible to keep the interest up as you get small piles of stuff everywhere {there's that hoarding again...} and it just never seems enough to sell.....) going around to all those houses and picking up their trash may work for some.
Here's a super-sharp tip, from one of the LARGE donation centers that I work with.
The lady in charge told me that they used to go around, door to door, collecting all the 'donation' stuff until they tried a central donation location and found that the quality of items went WAY up, and their overall profit margin skyrocketed.
Just think about it....
I know for our business, we found the exact same thing, and it didn't take long to see it! On the few times we tried going to people's houses, all they have is TRASH, but when we 'force' them to bring it to us, they only bring the GOOD stuff. And, lately, we have only been focusing on the MOST VALUABLE stuff, which has brought us a lot more profit, and a lot less work (just like someone said about 'work less, make more' - I've found it to always be true - and I'm not ashamed to admit I prefer that lifestyle!)
Although you have been given very good advice and reasoning about why it is impossible to give a 'figure', I have done some consulting with others in the field (that do this on a much bigger scale than we do - I'm always looking for mentors that have been there, done that before me....) and they gave me a figure that seems to work pretty well as a 'benchmark' to start backtracking and basing my offers on when I buy. What they found, on average, with pre-2000 computers (some say to go back even a bit further - I like to just say the "white case" ones...), the TOTAL value of EVERYTHING in them (from the scrap metal to the plastic, gold and every other possible recoverable) is $12, which is BEFORE taking out any sort of expense (including the chemical, labor, transport, etc.) You are welcome to use that figure, though as everyone has told you, it varies wildly and rapidly on any particular computer (for example, those that have several PCI cards in them vs. those with none). This number is based on a LARGE number of computers with a vast array of configurations - i.e., YOUR MILEAGE WILL VARY!Dave86 said:
As for what to pay for any one computer, we found that a price PER POUND has done wonders for us. It not only eliminates the question about "well, MY computer is so special and it has this, this, this, blah, blah, blah....." (because, if it has "more" it will WEIGH more..), it also eliminates having to deal with folks that have only one computer (or our worst enemy, someone with only ONE "broken" laptop or cell phone they want to sell for big$$$$$!) - what time wasters! We came up with a solution that works for us, estimating the time it takes to tear a computer apart, what is likely inside, what a 'typical' computer weighs and what we will be able to sell the parts for, etc. (yes, a bit of a spreadsheet and business plan!).
We created a webpage that goes out and grabs our buyers pricing as well as the current price of gold and silver, then through a special formula (grabbed some numbers from the air and started massaging them until it worked out....), our "buy price" now is based on many factors and changes constantly (which makes it difficult to quote prices on the phone - another thing that 'time wasters' don't like, which is good for our business!)
Those with big loads see that we are serious about moving their product, and are willing to give them the best price possible at any time. We have one guy that just brings in a pickup truck load of stuff and says "Give me $1/lb for the lot", even though he has a big mix of boards. The first time he came, we looked through the load, piece by piece (which took nearly two hours...) and found that to be a very good average. He knows his business and was looking for a good partner to buy from him - he found one!
One last thought on the 'yah-yah' garbage going on in this thread - the only way any business grows is by COMPETITION, which is, typically, wrought from previous employees and/or others that have viewed your success and tried to copy it. Sometimes, that puts the original company out of business, but, as I see it, that only happens because the original company forgot to continue to GROW and EXPAND their thinking (and/or services, etc.). This includes the folks we are selling our parts to - we constantly look for other buyers and if they don't keep up, we will go with the highest bidder (or at least try them once - recently we have given two other buyers a chance to win our business and we look forward to them proving it was a good decision!)
Anyone that doesn't embrace CHANGE is destined to failure.
We are a very typical example as we were facing company closure about a year ago. We looked at our business model, which had been working for many years, and saw that market conditions caused buyer changes, and our bottom line was nearly drained! We looked, long and hard, at how we might bring about something different and saw nothing in our current model that was very promising. So, we made a change and started dismantling computers (for years, we have thrown them away or donated them to charity - just getting rid of them as fast as possible!).
So far, it has worked well, as we are the 'only game in town' as far as buying ewaste.
Will someone else try to do it? Most likely. In fact, we look forward to it, as we believe our business model is strong and it would be near impossible to offer more than we do, which will continue to bring us the business, even though someone else may advertise more, etc. (which helps get the word out for us!) If we see they are taking business from us, then we just have to find a way to go grab some other 'piece of the pie' - embracing change...!
It all depends on how you face the world. You can do so with the LACK mentality ("there's not enough to go around") or with the PLENTY one ("there's more than enough, just what do I want to go grab"). I know which one I chose!
stevem4323
Well-known member
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2010
- Messages
- 70
hi dave ....i do know the exact amount a scrap computer is worth as i run a computer recycling company in birmingham and if you are doing computer recycling "on the side" ...dont bother we have to do it in hundreds of tons at a time if you want to collect free of charge you will not make any money 1 computer taken apart in the uk is worth around £5 and as for scrapping other electrical weee waste .....worthless...dvd players scanners printers etc only worth it if you have lots and lots and lots of tons of the stuff so back to the £5 pc by the time you take out transport then the time and effort to take it apart and the refiners wont look at you unless you have over 100 kilo of boards or ram and then they will charge around £300 for a 12 pallet consignment ...so i would maybe stick to the day job unless you read everything on here and refine yourself and maybe make afew more pound on top so if you want to buy a couple of ton of pcs let me knowDave86 said:
regards steve
Geo
Well-known member
steve, remember that profit is relative to whom you are speaking with. if you are a large company with alot of overhead, then of coarse you need to deal in bulk to break even. only a small percent of the readers here will fall under this category. this topic has been discussed on the forum at least a few times since ive been here whether or not Ewaste in general is worth scrapping and can a profit be made. it has been shown by quite a few members that happen to make their living and lively hood from this very same type of material, so like i said, its relative to who you are speaking with. what you said is a very broad statement that can be taken to mean that scrapping a computer is a waste of time, this is a view that is shared by a few members here but by and large theres more members that feel that there is a hefty profit to be made by scrapping computers. if you feel that theres no money to be made with Escrap, then by all means thats your right, but would like to ask you that when make a statement like that you would include that its just your opinion as new readers may take what is written as gospel and miss out on the experience or opportunity to recycle and keep waste from the landfill and (maybe) make a little on the side.
stevem4323
Well-known member
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2010
- Messages
- 70
if you look back i did say read all the posts on here and refine the computer yourself you will make a few more pound ...but to refine e waste as i said and not computers ie printers scanners dvd players is a different story ....as a business we make our profit on the removal and data destruction ....so on the whole i was basicly saying stick to computers read all the helpful hints and stay away from the lightweight ewaste ...and i agree keep it out of landfil since we have been going we have saved over 1000 tons from going in the groundGeo said:
I must say I personally take in ANY type of E-waste this includes all the low grade stuff. I would say that 70-80% of the weight in material I receive is low grade(what some consider junk/ waste of time). Given this I can still say I make out very well. It pays all my bills and still puts money in the bank. I know many reading this will not be able to take in some things, like crts they consume huge amounts of space. The biggest thing to consider is what can I sell this for. You should know roughly what you can get for what you take in. Then you need to consider do I have room to hold this until I get enough to sell. Some plastics companies will only take it 40,000lb at a time while others may be at like 15,000lbs but this takes a good chunk of real estate. hehe If you can keep your overhead low you can make out well in this business =))
~Chris!~
~Chris!~
trashmaster
Well-known member
MMFJ thank you for your post and your insight. :lol:
I know that it took some time to put that all together and was well writen..
I know that it took some time to put that all together and was well writen..
MMFJ
Well-known member
You (and all that appreciate and/or can benefit from it) are welcome.trashmaster said:MMFJ thank you for your post and your insight. :lol:
I know that it took some time to put that all together and was well writen..
It is nice to know that, on occasion, one of my 'soap box rants' gets read! :lol:
Post edit: Removed a good portion of this post due to its content, advised to read forum rules and proper conduct on the forum, we shall conduct ourselves here as gentlemen, we can disagree respectfully.
Butcher
I am offended by a post that wasnt even directed towards me...i think its the amount of disrespect i found in ericrm's posts when someone was just taking their own valuable time to give a well informed answer to a valid question.
Butcher
I am offended by a post that wasnt even directed towards me...i think its the amount of disrespect i found in ericrm's posts when someone was just taking their own valuable time to give a well informed answer to a valid question.
Geo
Well-known member
most companies that are concerned about employees learning the trade from them and then going into business for themselves have a non-disclosure agreement that stipulates that the employee can not engage in the type of business for a set amount of time after becoming separated from the company. any company that is unable or unwilling to go that extra mile is fair game. its called free enterprise.
Synuae, i know what it must look like to you and believe me when i say, foul language was addressed after the thread started by Harold V (one of our moderators) and all members were admonished about using bad language. read this thread. notice the date of when the offensive language was used and the date Harold posted. you may go back and edit out what may be offensive as Harold already warned the guilty parties about this.
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=14035
Synuae, i know what it must look like to you and believe me when i say, foul language was addressed after the thread started by Harold V (one of our moderators) and all members were admonished about using bad language. read this thread. notice the date of when the offensive language was used and the date Harold posted. you may go back and edit out what may be offensive as Harold already warned the guilty parties about this.
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=14035
Pantherlikher
Well-known member
All in all this is a good thread. Got several views on wether Ewaste is a waste or not. And there is always at least 1 that takes advice the wrong way and emotions intervein.
In my own personal opinion. It's not worth the time involved to get every cent possible..
That being said, I have 4 kids in my care that no one else would be able to deal with so I can not have a full time JOB. "MOM" has a great JOB and can pay bills and all just enough for us to drown a slow and painfull death...
So, putting my "gotta know how it works and why" mentality to work. I went and tried the "give me your computer scrap" method. Not enough aound here in the country as well as several "buyers" already working on tight margins.
I goto local auctions and buy box lots as cheaply as possible and scrap every little piece of metal. Taring things apart untill unrecognizable to get as much "EXTRA", used loosely, Cash as I can to help.
Hoping 1 day to make enough to have a descent income from it.
So in the end, it's all a matter of perspective as to wether it's worth it or not.
BS.
Finding Sanity to be only a mass dillusional reality...
In my own personal opinion. It's not worth the time involved to get every cent possible..
That being said, I have 4 kids in my care that no one else would be able to deal with so I can not have a full time JOB. "MOM" has a great JOB and can pay bills and all just enough for us to drown a slow and painfull death...
So, putting my "gotta know how it works and why" mentality to work. I went and tried the "give me your computer scrap" method. Not enough aound here in the country as well as several "buyers" already working on tight margins.
I goto local auctions and buy box lots as cheaply as possible and scrap every little piece of metal. Taring things apart untill unrecognizable to get as much "EXTRA", used loosely, Cash as I can to help.
Hoping 1 day to make enough to have a descent income from it.
So in the end, it's all a matter of perspective as to wether it's worth it or not.
BS.
Finding Sanity to be only a mass dillusional reality...
joem
Well-known member
There are plenty of good and bad with ewaste. It does not matter if you classify it as "low grade" boards or "low grade" people. Some like it and some don't. For myself I accept all, period. Every piece of scrap is worth money to me and in the past two years I have made good profits which have given my kids lots of extras I could not have before I met ewaste and metal scrap. Some ewaste I buy and I have regular sellers, we both know we need to make profits and we both accept it. But Most comes from just telling people what I do and I ask for ewaste. Precious metal recovery, I my case gold, is just the icing on the cake. I will be expanding my gold recovery but in retrospect it was ewaste that brought me to where I am in my life. Years back when my wife became sick and could not work I took a job doing dishes in a restaurant. It kept me away from home most evenings and weekend just to cover the utility bills. Now I stay at home more often and make many times the money I made from the minimum wage job. It was mentioned that making money on ewaste is unique to each person, that is true, if you make it unique to you and accept help when available then you will succeed.
