I very rarely pick something up and go straight to the yard. I usually bring everything home, remove all the non ferrous into their respective buckets and piles, and then sort the ferrous out into a couple of different piles. The first pile is the really thick and heavy stuff that is either about 3' long, or will be cut down to 3'. This tends to be my smallest pile. The next is slightly lighter stuff, but still thicker that tin. Then I have a pile for sheet metal, and all the other oddball lightweight non ferrous things that I come across.



I wait until each pile is large enough to justify starting the truck, otherwise I make my weekly ferrous scrap run with my little toyota corolla. Car batteries on on a pallet, which I'll load into the back of the truck with my tractor when I get a full pallet, or if my ferrous run is a little light I'll throw a few batteries in the trunk of the car. At $6 each, I really like car batteries, but I didn't get any this week.