I find the following up: Availability, Ignorance, Operating Costs, Liability, Commodities
I also find the following down: Competition, Material Quality (A broom handle weighed 3 lbs twenty years ago, they are a half pound and still steel today), Feeder Yard Prices (longer travel to better yards)
The point I'm making, if you can move the readily available material to the consolidation yards you will do better now than you did ten years ago. Gone are the days of running around the state in a 7mpg pickup truck. I still, even with our size scope large scores on the motorcycle. People tend to be ignorant and tell me they have all kinds of e waste and just need it gone. I get there and sure...they have all kinds of printers and broken lcds. Also yes I completely agree people want to recycle, but fewer know where and if you've perused your municipal websites you will find that they don't make it any better in telling their residents where to take that pesky computer from college.
The landscape of scrap is changing too. Two years ago the chinese exporters would crawl all over the scrap yards that accept e waste looking for scores. Today, nobody shows up. I'm being told that shipments are being held that were sealed up in January. Exporters that I know are looking for domestic outlets so they won't lose all their money. I'm finding my niche in that. Canadian tariffs on exports might hurt short term but again, they were just selling to china so that isn't any better.
A friendly reminder too, if your in doubt, go in and ask. Be kind and courteous and tell them you will clean up after yourself. 95% of the time you will get a happy reply and an ok.
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