Full timers, are you noticing a drop in scrappers around you or still the same?

When prices started dropping I figured it would knock out some competition. However, it seems I am actually seeing more. At work, we aren't getting as many turn-ins but I think folks are stockpiling.

I am stockpiling all but steel, get it out of the way and not start a junk yard in my yard lol.

This time of year, colder, end of year and post yard and garage cleaning ups, things are usually down anyways. I did get more last week than normal but that could have been a fluke.

So was just wondering what everyone else was noticing around them, more or less competition with the market down? Or the same?

I can tell you what I'm seeing at the yard: It's a ghost-town!

The last couple weeks I've been at the yard 3 days a week, usually for an hour or more. The most traffic I've seen is people bringing in deer hides, al cans, and people buying new steel. Maybe the occasional piece of farm equipment.

With the exception of the occasional flurry of activity, it's gotten so slow that I have been unloading my non-ferrous while blocking the big scale. I used to pull off to the side, but what the hell I have the whole place to myself.

Makes for quick unloading, but I'd rather see the place bustling with activity.

The die-hards are still at it around here!
looks like it might of been the last weekend to get it off the ground before it freezes in
all the regulars were in yesterday, very entertaining to have six or seven guys hollering at each other while unloading
last few trips it was a ghost town though...

It's a complete ghost town at ours. There's only one employee in the yard. I've dropped off entire truckloads before, with the likelihood of not even being seen. Shred isn't paying anything though, so they really don't care much.

Farm equipment has fallen by the wayside. The yard calls me when any equipment comes in- we're farmers, so I've bought whole machines from them a couple of times, and parts on more occasions. I used to get a call about once a week. I haven't been called in the last month. There's nothing there other than retail shelving (A lot of stores are shuttering here).

Not good....

My observations:

Shredder runs for less hours, but the yard we go to is on contract so they MUST receive enough material to satisfy the mills. That said...walk ins and drive ins seem to be down. Our business itself, were growing as per usual, e waste is weird like that. Copper being down has had more of an impact than steel being down around here.

There are less scrappers out But the ones that are around use small dump trucks - even I had an opportunity to get a dump truck for $1200 but loading a ton by hand 4 foot up hill into truck for $60 as a curb hunting concept is problematic .
Any way I notice less out on curb also & less dumpsters with the goods.
I still find but I pick what i know delivers $$
The yard have few curb hunters these days .

Any way I do as the news letter once mentioned I charge
I saved a 500 pound mix load
cash in ticket for $14.71 (as proof)
It speaks for it self - Mix metals are of little value when time and fuel is realized
people will pay as I have found .
Sorry if my response ranted out as I was not looking to hijack OP

Originally Posted by newattitude

When prices started dropping I figured it would knock out some competition. However, it seems I am actually seeing more. At work, we aren't getting as many turn-ins but I think folks are stockpiling.

I am stockpiling all but steel, get it out of the way and not start a junk yard in my yard lol.

This time of year, colder, end of year and post yard and garage cleaning ups, things are usually down anyways. I did get more last week than normal but that could have been a fluke.

So was just wondering what everyone else was noticing around them, more or less competition with the market down? Or the same?

Activity around here's picked up actually but it's from the major outfitters, there's maybe one small scrapper here besides myself. Either way it's keeping Weitsman in business and he's not slowing down.

I'm seeing the SAME amount of guys out there. I now have 4 guys that I can pick up the phone and they will be at my house in less than 5 minutes to get ANY steel I have to give away. This past week I literally was pouring garbage cans of steel into the CAB of one of my Curbco guys truck (his request, not my idea) after I had loaded his bed.

He came to me a few days later and said "Ya know what that load brought? It was 960 lbs and I got $16"

Why they are still doing this.. I don't know.. but it works out great for me, I won't haul it for $16 bucks.. and I need an outlet for it.. so kudos to them for taking the time, gas, and vehicle wear and tear out of my equation!

One of the things that hurts us is that charging doesn't work out here. We're very rural, and most scrap is at farms. There are machines that have been sitting for over 30 years. You have to pay to have any chance at those machines. Right now, they'll sit for a few more years.

In more populated areas, the county would force removal. Out here, though, it's perfectly legal to have an equipment junkyard anywhere you want.

I went to a yard in Westfield IN recently and there was one other guy the whole time I was there. I was only there because I had a mini barn up the road froom it that I had to cut up and haul away and I didn't want to take the scrap all the way home just to store it then go ALL the way back(1 1/2 hours from my home) to finish the job. Got twelve bucks for it lol!

My last trip (this week) I was the only truck thru the ferrous line but the crane was stacking up the sheet metal and misc. around me into a higher pile so some trucks had been there. The non ferrous side there was no waiting in line, drive straight up to the door. Doesn't seem to be quite as many employees tho.

But this is the yard that just bought the local car/truck junkyard. Put up a bunch of new fence, Repainted and new siding on the front buildings (which is the first thing out by the road). Most of their better vehicles that come in to the scrapyard get shuttled down to the junk yard. Their making money somewhere to buy up a junkyard in this market.

I see less people going thru our dumpsters. We also have more people dumping steel in the dumpsters. So more work for less money, I would rather have some of the less messy scrappers back! My trip to the non-ferrous yard last week, was the first time ever that there was only one pay window open. Most of the time there is three payout windows. There was also only one scale going, in times past they would have four scale stations and three payout windows, obviously they have had to layoff workers. This all sucks and can't be good for anyone!

I just went to a cleanout job I was hired for, and a lot of it was metal. I took in a load in the morning and when I took the second load in that afternoon they told me I was the only truck they had seen all day.