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Analysis of ewaste true value

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    ScrapYaHerd started this thread.
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    Analysis of ewaste true value

    I've always thought about operating/profit margins while scrapping. With typical scrap it is pretty easy since there is a maximum of only 1 or 2 metals combined and you can find the spot/market prices of these metals rather easily. This helps me figure out how the scrap business works and what margins everyone operates on. When recycling ewaste I have never been able to quite grasp what is the exact make up, what are the margins, and how much is really to be made in the end. So that basically brought me to ask myself what is my load really worth? For me purchasing high grade boards is the lowest margin of anything which makes what I found funny.


    Tonight I did a little research on the process the big companies use on refining the material, about $25,000 bare minimum per process/metal. I quick/rough calculated a "small" setup would be no less than 250k just in equipment. This might explain why someone feels entitled to so much of the profit in the end. I will take you through some numbers and show how it works.


    Lets say your busy and you get 1,000lbs of clean "mother boards" in a month.

    All prices will be roughly around spot. This is percentages I gathered through my research of that 1,000lbs of material.

    Copper value @ $3.70/lb=$429
    Lead@$1.00/lb=$10
    Zinc@$.90/lb=$5
    Alum@$.90=$9
    Nickel@$8/lb=$80
    Gold@$25,000/lb=$25,000
    Silver@$493/lb=$246
    Palladium@650=$3,250



    Lets say that is a good mix and you get $4.50/lb you just made $4,500, wow big deal hahah......

    Wherever your buyer sells to it's final value should be $29,000...This price and market are highly dependent on metal prices. There is definite disproportion of margin looks like a good business to be in to me with over 500% profit margin between us and the refiner.
    Last edited by ScrapYaHerd; 10-02-2012 at 10:41 PM. Reason: wrong stats

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    Its very time consuming between yard and refiner, some processes take 3-8 weeks to refine in ewaste, also no ewaste gets smelted in united states, everythng goes over seas

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    Also, im looking for a lead smelter got about 2-5 50 gallon drums

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    Uh, not to rain on your research parade but your numbers don't even come close to making any sense and are completely inaccurate. Are you trying to determine the yield on a 1,000# lot or a 25,000# lot? Eh, I'll just let it go I'm too tired to even begin to share accurate numbers or begin correcting this...

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    ScrapYaHerd started this thread.
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    I'd love for someone to chime in as I have never been to the refiner and was using industry research to come to my numbers. Actual numbers would be great if some one wants to share but most people are closed lip. The paper I looked at had 4 samples and took the average of all 4. They used a short ton, which is 2000lbs I took those percentages and applied them to 1000lbs of material to make it easier, and rounded everything down to the nearest whole number.

    In the end the point of this post is to come up with a final value number that can be ROUGHLY applied to ewaste to get an idea of the profit margin, lets figure it out.
    Last edited by ScrapYaHerd; 10-03-2012 at 07:55 AM.

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    The % I used was .1% for gold, .1% for silver, 20% for copper

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    I would like to see where you got your 4 papers?

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    Aside from the other things that people already mentioned, there are so many things that you did not mention in you addressing the real value of ewaste. Most of the things you failed to mention make you bottom line plummet. A few quick examples are as follows. Fuel, Electricity, Insurance, Environmental cost, Permits, Employs, Commercial Real Estate. If you want to share some of this "SO CALLED" Profit margin then you must be willing to share in the expenses and risk also. You live in the greatest country in the world. You are FREE to start you own refinery and rake in the big bucks yourself. I will instead stat grateful for the opportunity to be able to sell my e-waste to people down stream who handle it in a safe manner. And I for one hope to God that they prosper so that they will be there to buy from me tomorrow.
    There may a million better places to live than Iowa, but none of them are home!

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    It is always easier to count someone else's money.

    I had a guy tell me the other day that what we do is easy. All we do is move gaylords from one truck to another.

    Aside from having to move millions of lbs of scrap material, we need to assume risk, liability, cover our overhead, inventory carrying/storage costs, inventory processing costs, Certification (along with its implementation and maintenance, etc.) - Once I mentioned half of that risk his next comment was a question, then why do you do it? Because I love it
    Specializing in Maximum value for mixed precious metal printed circuit boards and electronics

    Check out our pricing and read some of our RAVING reviews: http://www.scrapmetalforum.com/scrap...tal-scrap.html
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    Quote Originally Posted by msearl3244 View Post
    Aside from the other things that people already mentioned, there are so many things that you did not mention in you addressing the real value of ewaste. Most of the things you failed to mention make you bottom line plummet. A few quick examples are as follows. Fuel, Electricity, Insurance, Environmental cost, Permits, Employs, Commercial Real Estate. If you want to share some of this "SO CALLED" Profit margin then you must be willing to share in the expenses and risk also. You live in the greatest country in the world. You are FREE to start you own refinery and rake in the big bucks yourself. I will instead stat grateful for the opportunity to be able to sell my e-waste to people down stream who handle it in a safe manner. And I for one hope to God that they prosper so that they will be there to buy from me tomorrow.
    I have to agree.....I buy locally and my customers are more than happy with the prices I give them.........I then ship to ewasted and make my 20 to 30% then I'm sure he makes his % and this is what makes the world go around. If I was to worry about all these yields etc I would drive myself crazy (LOL)

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    Quote Originally Posted by msearl3244 View Post
    You live in the greatest country in the world..
    What country is that cause it sure isn't america.


    http://reclaimtech.com/
    We pay you to recycle!

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    [QUOTE=drozenski;104401]What country is that cause it sure isn't america.

    For me its Canada. Why? Because I am free to move within it or even outside of it and still come HOME. That is what makes a country the best; not healthcare, nor pension, nor world wealth, its FREEDOM. And so far we have that and so does the US.

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    I appreciated the video clip, and I especially like the post by Ewasted. THAT is why he is successful, more than anything else; he loves what he does!

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    Quote Originally Posted by msearl3244 View Post
    Aside from the other things that people already mentioned, there are so many things that you did not mention in you addressing the real value of ewaste. Most of the things you failed to mention make you bottom line plummet. A few quick examples are as follows. Fuel, Electricity, Insurance, Environmental cost, Permits, Employs, Commercial Real Estate. If you want to share some of this "SO CALLED" Profit margin then you must be willing to share in the expenses and risk also. You live in the greatest country in the world. You are FREE to start you own refinery and rake in the big bucks yourself. I will instead stat grateful for the opportunity to be able to sell my e-waste to people down stream who handle it in a safe manner. And I for one hope to God that they prosper so that they will be there to buy from me tomorrow.
    Lets be honest, most of the permits and laws for refineries were done to keep others from starting up their own. The cost of entry is getting too expensive and eventually all the smaller operations will be baught out so that only a few control the whole pipeline and they will then change pricing to keep all the profits. The EPA will fine a billion dollar operation the same as it will a small mom and pop operation, guess who can afford to pay the fees and not even notice it (of course the older operations will also get grandfathered in unlike the new startup). Every industry ends up as a monopoly that keeps others from sharing in the profit.

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  24. #15
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    Must be cleaned motherboards if theres only 10 pounds of aluminum out of 1000 pounds. And no steel. You need to take 10% off the 1000 pounds of material and run the numbers again if thats the case.

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    Msearl- In business everyone needs to make money, however the metrics used to distribute the earnings, and who earns what tend to be skewed...Sales can sometimes make as much or more than the owner/ceo even though they take on no risk, little vested in the company, and little physical labor usually, they just so happen to bring the $$ into the company. Then you got a laborer who busts ass all day, the job is integral into the success of the company but is payed the least, everyone thinks they should make top dollar no matter what it is. I am very well versed in risk vs return, capital expenditures, evaluating projects and predicting/discounting cash flows. I understand for a company to take on setting up a refinery they are going to hopefully evaluate all of this. The point of this thread was not to give perceptions of how we each think business should work but instead to figure out a rough margin on ewaste so lets get back on track. Maybe one day I will own a refinery never know...

    Mikenreco-I hope you have other ways to increase your margin working hard for 20-30% isn't much...I think a good margin is at least 40-50%....Some resellers I hear hit the 1000% mark often.I'm an investor so I'M VERY FOCUSED ON % RETURNS. I work 80-90hrs and I expect my money to work even harder for me.

    jghilino-There was steel as well as other things like gases, earth oxides, plastics, etc.that were resold but for simplicity purposes I did not include those materials. Some of the articles I read mentioned basically 0 waste systems.

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    our returns are FAR below 20-30% I think you will be sadly disappointed in this business.

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    It depends on if were talking % markup, profit margin, or operating margin. If you have a business and run a good bit less than a 20% profit margin or mark up that makes things pretty darn tight, serious volume.....

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    I don't know where you got those # but 1 lb or 14.5 troy oz of Au (gold) from 1000 lb of MoBo sounds Nutz.:confused:
    My research and discussions with several refiners would indicate a much lower yield from green MoBo and even less from rainbow boards. Based on yields from 2011 published by one of words leading smelters they were getting 180 grams or 5.7871troy oz of Au from a metric ton of green moBo. So your 1k of MoBo would yield only 2.625 troy oz or $4672.5 based on London fix of $1780.
    Now consider that it would take a straight load of of 40,000lbs of Mobo ($162,000) to make it profitable enough to cover the cost associated with having your material processed you also have to wait 120 days on your money. Also the one refining is always risking a lower yield as no 2 assays are the same and there are penalties for too much Be or Ni ect. I'll continue to sell to a broker like E-Wasted and get a guaranteed price up front Thank You Very much.
    Published yields from Umicore:
    Be 0,001 %
    Organics 25 %
    SiO2 18 %
    Al2O3 10 %
    Fe 6 %
    Ni 0,8 %
    Cu 17 %
    Pd 80 ppm
    Pt 1 ppm
    Au 180 ppm
    Ag 800 ppm

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    Ewasted what would happen if you were the buyer and refiner?


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