I dont have a lot of experience in scrap metal - only my third year - and have never worked with or for anyone else in this. I just kind of learned on my own and as I went along. Ive always done things like clean radiators by taking the non-aluminum (or brass) stuff off, sort aluminum by sheet, cast and extrusion, take alternators apart for the copper and sort by cast and irony aluminum and anything else I can do to maximize the worth of what Im taking in. I see guys come in with a pickup load of mixed stuff - radiators, tire rims (normally #1 iron), cast iron and light iron all thrown together. Everything is then offloaded in one pile and they are paid for the whole load at the light-iron rate (the lowest of anything they have in the load). Of course, then people at the yard separate the stuff into categories.
I guess my question is - How common is this? Do you take the time and effort to maximize as much as possible or do you just haul it all up in one load and hope to make it up by hauling more loads?
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