Hello everyone!
For the better part of 20 years, I've done many different trades in the construction industry, I've worked in IT, I've been a backyard auto mechanic, and I even had my home improvement license for a period of time. But in majority of that time, I was ignorant to scrap metal recycling. From time to time I'd exchange a bag of soda cans for a couple of dollars but I didn't know that there was REAL money in scrap metal.. Well I did.. but I thought that I needed to carry it in by the ton in order to get anything for it.
So over the years I've done demolition and renovation work where I let aluminum siding, copper gutters, brass, lead and copper pipes, copper wire etc. get away from me. I had hard times finding places where I could legally dispose of it. in fact I had even PAID some folks to take the scrap away for me only to drive off with a smirk on their face as if I was a fool.
About a year ago I picked up a side gig doing low-voltage electrical work. As I was pulling the wire and trimming off the excess, I noticed that the owner of the company was separating the wire from the rest of my trash. When I asked him about it, he said that he was recycling all of the scrap because they were paying over $2 a pound for it. (he had nearly 100 lbs in his bag) That's when I stopped trashing my wire scraps and started saving them on my own jobs.
One day a scrap metal yard opened up 2 miles from my house. I figured that I'd give them a try. I brought my wire, my brake drums, rotors, calipers, and a few other odds and ends... and I walked out with $30 for something that I otherwise would have tried to sneak into someone's dumpster!
I started burning my wire because the price was higher without the insulation but as other people said on here, not only does it create cancer-causing toxins in the air, you also lose a significant amount of it. And when I went back to my burn barrel, all I could think to myself was, "Wow! I could have sworn that I had more wire than this!"
So I am glad that I discovered this forum. Since I've been recycling various items, I've always wondered whether I was getting a fair deal and where/who I can go to in order to check out what the market prices are. I can see that I will learn a lot of things about scrap metal and I hope to be able to share some of the things that I learn on my own.
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