Big day on the road today!

**ElectricMetal** · 01-30-2012, 03:57 PM

Congratulations. That's quite a haul. I'm fascinated by the networking part of this job -- the process of establishing your own niche sandwiched within the big fish (tuna)-medium fish (bass)-and small fish (guppy) E-cycling hierarchy.

I'm starting to think of E-waste production as a distribution with Big Gov. and Big Corp. comprising the peak of the distribution. So the real question for a potential E-waste entrepreneur/hobbyist is:
Is the E-waste in my region distributed normally or with a fat-tailed distribution -- and how fat is the waste stream tail composed of medium-to-small businesses/non-profits/local gov/individual households. Different regions of the country may have different E-waste distribution shapes, thereby creating different economies of scale for E-waste collectors/sellers. Small E-waste operators may work well in one region but not in others depending on the shape of the waste stream distribution. And there's of course a dynamic element to this since the E-waste distribution is probably always changing due to local competition and macroeconomic factors affecting local businesses.

Anyway, it's food for thought that I'm currently munching on.
Thanks for sharing the story thortek.
It really sounds like you've built a great local collection network for the scale of your operation.

**IronPirate** · 01-30-2012, 04:23 PM

Hmm...distribution curves...neat concept.

One of the suburban school districts down here is auctioning 50 or so dell towers by the piece on-line...they're going for close to $20/per. Good thing you're getting yours for $2 thor!

**thortek** · 01-30-2012, 07:21 PM

Originally Posted by ElectricMetal

Congratulations. That's quite a haul. I'm fascinated by the networking part of this job -- the process of establishing your own niche sandwiched within the big fish (tuna)-medium fish (bass)-and small fish (guppy) E-cycling hierarchy.

I'm starting to think of E-waste production as a distribution with Big Gov. and Big Corp. comprising the peak of the distribution. So the real question for a potential E-waste entrepreneur/hobbyist is:
Is the E-waste in my region distributed normally or with a fat-tailed distribution -- and how fat is the waste stream tail composed of medium-to-small businesses/non-profits/local gov/individual households. Different regions of the country may have different E-waste distribution shapes, thereby creating different economies of scale for E-waste collectors/sellers. Small E-waste operators may work well in one region but not in others depending on the shape of the waste stream distribution. And there's of course a dynamic element to this since the E-waste distribution is probably always changing due to local competition and macroeconomic factors affecting local businesses.

Anyway, it's food for thought that I'm currently munching on.
Thanks for sharing the story thortek.
It really sounds like you've built a great local collection network for the scale of your operation.

I'm building my network. Thanks for e kudos! I've been using a lot of e,ail to get the job done. I now have some word of mouth too. I just need to get some $$$$ coming in to offset the costs. We live in a county of 115k people, so the stream is small, but I'm the only fish swimming towards the worms. I hope to get my name out there before anyone else catches on!