the FUTURE OF SCRAPPING or

Originally Posted by Tcgs

Noble,

What I meant by a Hot new commodity is, what if something unusual like polyester, just found a new use as an alternative fuel source, and everyone is scrapping polyester shirts at $25 a lb. Obviously that is not the case as I know it. But maybe you will know how to respond to that.

I see, so what you are saying is a new need for a certain type of scrap that makes that particular scrap worth more?

Simply stated, unless we are doing the research and development on those new ways to use scrap, we have to wait around for someone else to develop those new and novel ways. I am big on taking a material all the way from a recycled good to retail product. I currently return many of my solutions I use in refining, back into some useful process, and on a totally different level I am purchasing material to recover and refine precious metals, and then turning them into useful products like copper and silver plated door knobs that reduce, by as much as 25% the transfer of certain types of bacteria, like MRSA. As well I am developing a precious metal clay with different alloys all derived from recycled precious metals so that an artist or even a home hobbyist can form the clay into whatever form them desire, and fire it in an oven at a lower than melt temperature so that it produces a piece of fused metal in whatever shape it was formed, just exactly as a jeweler might using other methods. I know another refiner who is developing 3D printing powders of precious metals, and still other people developing other products. But I don't think these concepts are going to create enough demand for precious metals to make the scrap worth more, so I'm not sure what other things may or may not.

I think it far more likely that it becomes more and more difficult to extract precious metals out of the earth, and thus drives prices up in that fashion. Iron is found almost everywhere on earth in varying amounts so I don't think that will ever become a problem, but other metals that are far more rare, that are created only during a super nova of a sun, those metals will surely become more difficult to obtain, and thus go up in price as they become harder to obtain.

I am totally baffled by silver, and this might be the best example yet to explain my point about metals not being affected by novel products. Silver is far more useful than gold, it's used at a 1/1 ratio currently in industry, and ways of using it are being discovered at a much faster rate than uses for other precious metals. Check out the silver institute for the numbers:

http://www.silverinstitute.org/site/

There is also a lot less silver in the world than other metals, yet recently it has been incorporated into clothing for example, to reduce the need for deodorants because silver kills the bacteria that causes the smell. And once incorporated into clothing, it's almost impossible to recover again. There are many examples of this with silver, yet the prices keep falling. A clear sign that there is something else going on that is causing the fall in silver as a commodity.

I can say this with a fair amount of certainty. As it becomes more and more difficult to obtain the raw materials that are needed, on the open market because of supply and demand, more and more people are going to turn to scrapping or recycling as a means to supply it. Take metals for example, when I was a kid I used to go with my father to the dumps, I remember seeing copper all over the place. Matter of fact, I built my first forth made with materials we were given by construction workers at the construction site that was going on right across the street from my house when I was a kid, because all those items were not worth much, and were plentiful. Now days you get arrested for removing a cinder block from a construction site, and nobody throws copper away at the junk yard.

I think what might be far more likely though, rather than some new use for scrap, I think it far more likely that people start buying up on garbage dumps and get licensed to mine them for the scrap they contain, the wood pulp, the metals, and other materials.



Scott

Originally Posted by NobleMetalWorks

a new need for a certain type of scrap that makes that particular scrap worth more?

Scott

That's exactly what I mean, I can imagine a jump on something like cardboard. Maybe we find a way to reduce our dependency on trees by finding cheaper ways to recycle cardboard and paper.

Also, I have heard of these dumps being mined already. Landfill Mining
I like the idea.
Landfill mining - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The cardboard market is pretty much set. For extra pocket change when I owned a grocery store I used to sell the bails of cardboard and the pallets truckers left behind for extra cash. I have seen cardboard bail prices drop dramatically over the years, yet all the cardboard industry can get their hands on is recycled and turned into goods already. There is not enough carboard waste being generated to supply the demand, thus the use of trees.

And as hemp becomes legal to grow as a crop, the dependency on forests to provide the fiber pulp needed to make paper will dramatically reduce, so in cardboard, I think we are going to see a dramatic drop in prices within the next 5-10 years rather than an increase in demand. This added with the fact that many business are going paperless, and more and more public establishments are using other methods to dry rather than paper, I think the paper recycle business might not be the best example to use.

Scott

Originally Posted by NobleMetalWorks

I think the paper recycle business might not be the best example to use.

Scott

I think it is. Although cardboard is going down you still provided excellent speculation. And I believe the new growth market is in agriculture.

Hemp recycling? That could be interesting.

In Colorado, that business is booming, more dispensaries are open than Starbucks. If our laws continue to other states you would see the same growth.

Originally Posted by Tcgs

I think it is. Although cardboard is going down you still provided excellent speculation. And I believe the new growth market is in agriculture.

Hemp recycling? That could be interesting.

In Colorado, that business is booming, more dispensaries are open than Starbucks. If our laws continue to other states you would see the same growth.

With hemp we are not seeing a growth, we are seeing replacement, there is a drastic difference. So while we loose jobs in the woodcutting industry for example, we should be gaining them in the production of hemp. And so far as the recycle process is concerned, it's the same process to recycle hemp fibers as wood, they are almost the same except for the fact that hemp has far less lignin actually makes it more cost effective and less labor intensive to recycle. So while I believe hemp is a much better source for making paper, as it uses far less chemicals to process, has less acid so you don't need to add chemicals to prevent it from decaying, and it is far less expensive to recycle, I still don't think there is any money to be made from it. Matter of fact, it will probably replace tobacco in places were tobacco is grown, so in the long run we might just actually loose the jobs in the lumber industry, and not be replacing them with hemp production.

I still believe hemp is the right direction, but I don't believe there is any opportunity there unless you are the actual paper mill, and even then the money that is saved will be passed along to the stock holders.

Scott

New growth in agriculture as a whole. Not necessarily hemp production. But a hemp byproduct.

Originally Posted by Otto

I'm not an expert on the forest industry, but It's my understanding that there has been a dramatic shift away from pulp over the past several years. Wood pellets, primarily for power generation, is growing steadily. This, and problems with supply due to Mountain Pine Beetle and other pests, means there will be an increasing scarcity of wood fiber (especially when home construction ramps up again). I did some reading on wood recycling over the winter and it appears that there are companies involved in this. I have no idea what used wood fiber is going for, but money follows scarcity. If someone has access to significant volumes of waste wood, there may be an opportunity here.

Wood and wood pulp are different in that their markets are different, and the way they are recycled are different.

For example, wood eaten by Beatles can still be used to pulp, but cannot be used for construction.

So you are correct in that wood used for construction has become very expensive indeed. And this has caused some pressure on the wood pulping industry in the type that manufactures paper products. But so far as cardboard is concerned, it keeps going down because there is more and more of it. Just imagine how much cardboard enters the US every year from China, as more and more of our goods are Chinese made, more and more of the cardboard is as well.

The other side of the story is that there is a big controversy currently over the trees that Monsanto is creating that will not produce offspring, and have less lignin so that it's easier to produce pulp from them.

Monsanto and ArborGen set their sights on GM trees and grasses

Which I might add seems totally insane to me considering that Hemp fibers do it far better, and I'm not so keen on the idea of introducing GMO trees that have a drop dead gene built in, sounds dangerous to me.

Scott