the FUTURE OF SCRAPPING or

With so much uncertainty in the world today. Where is the scrapping business going to end up?

Any ideas on the kind of prices we might see? High or Low?

Maybe a new hot commodity?

New Laws? Ones that restrict free scrapping?

Insane fuel prices?

Precious Metal Currency?

Originally Posted by scrappy888

U tell us...

Im a level one..

Seriously 888's, where do you think its going to be. Some of us only have scrap for a job. We would like to hear your thoughts.

I don't know where it's headed but just hope it's not taken over by a bunch of suit wearing corprate pretty boys ! I get dirty everyday I scrap, and Im quite proud of that fact ! I wear the holes in my jeans, blisters on my hands and dirt on my face like a badge of honor!

Originally Posted by taterjuice

just hope it's not taken over by a bunch of suit wearing corprate pretty boys !

So you think big business might move in. Like the yards might go after your clients with their own trucks?

Originally Posted by Tcgs

With so much uncertainty in the world today. Where is the scrapping business going to end up?

There has always been uncertainty, when Europeans thought they had it right, life happened, so they boarded ships by the thousands and traveled to the United States to start a new life, not knowing what life was going to bring, but with that spirit that has served Americans well since.

The only constant is change, life happens while we are making other plans, such is life, we don't know what the future holds, all these sayings have been passed down through the years by people who experienced uncertainty first hand. Fear mongering is going to do nothing but cause panic. We should instead embrace change as an opportunity.

Originally Posted by Tcgs

Any ideas on the kind of prices we might see? High or Low?

As long as you adjust your business practices, your turns, your profit margin and labor percentage, as need be, the prices rising and falling will not affect you much, specially if you are hedging, and specially for those people you label as level 1-2 scrappers who get their scrap from the street, for free, and specially for those doing so for extra income, after all these are particular people are most able to bear any change than anyone else as they have fall back plans and different sources of income, which so far as I am concerned is brilliant on their part.

Originally Posted by Tcgs

Maybe a new hot commodity?

I think the entire point in the scrap business is not to bring a hot new commodity to market, but instead to look for the old commodities no longer useful or wanted, and scrap them. I'm not sure what you mean by this statement, unless you are talking about people taking recycled goods and turning them into new products or commodities. I do that, but that's refining, not really what this post is about I think. So in this respect, I would be very interested to know what you consider a hot new scrapping commodity. Maybe if I understand the question better, I can comment.

Originally Posted by Tcgs

New Laws? Ones that restrict free scrapping?

This is a very well talked about subject on this forum, you can do a search and quickly be overwhelmed by the volumes of information and discussion on this particular subject.

http://www.scrapmetalforum.com/disma...s-florida.html

http://www.scrapmetalforum.com/gener...-changing.html

http://www.scrapmetalforum.com/gener...olina-law.html

http://www.scrapmetalforum.com/misc-...wire-laws.html

http://www.scrapmetalforum.com/gener...n-program.html

http://www.scrapmetalforum.com/misc-...laws-suck.html

Actually I just realized there are over 10 pages of threads that have been discussed about this particular subject, here is the link to the pages:

Scrap Metal Forum - The Official Scrap Metal Recycling Community - Custom Search

Originally Posted by Tcgs

Insane fuel prices?

Again another search of the forum turns up over 10 pages of threads that discuss fuel prices and how it might affect scrapping:

Scrap Metal Forum - The Official Scrap Metal Recycling Community - Custom Search

Originally Posted by Tcgs

Precious Metal Currency?

I already barter with precious metals, I sometimes trade precious metals for scrap to process, or purchase goods and services from people I know and have done business with by trading precious metals. Individual states may institute precious metal currencies, but I don't think outside trading the raw metal back and forth that we will ever see precious metal currency on a nationwide basis. There are a lot of reasons for this, and you can google them all day long but the short of it is that we just don't have the precious metals on hand to create enough currency to even pay the interest on the money owed on the credit card debt carried in this country. If you really want to understand precious metals, you might be better served asking on GRF. There are people who specialize in this specific area who frequent that forum.

In the future, you might be better served if you honestly desire to know the answers to these questions, and are asking the forum members because you do not know already, to search for the answers before posting your questions. I have said this before, and I guess I'll keep saying it as it pertains. There is a huge wealth of accumulated information on this forum, it is probably the single most important repository of information in any college, library or anywhere else on the internet that pertains to scrapping.

Scott

Originally Posted by Tcgs

So you think big business might move in. Like the yards might go after your clients with their own trucks?

Well, not at all what I was getting at. But being your work for the pretty boys I'm talking bout I didn't really expect you would understand.

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 can simply sum up how I see scrappers sort of like this.

In the universe, the world, nature, everything we are involved in there exists chaos and order, one doesn't exist without the other and both are required for life to keep churning. Making order out of chaos is most important when we realize that civilization can be defined by the amount of order that can be applied to chaos. However, as a by-product of order there is waste produced, which is order being returned to chaos.

Scrappers will always be needed, and in greater and greater numbers as more and more of the world becomes more and more civilized, because scrapers take the chaos produced by civilization, the by product of order, and return it back into order, the more civilization, the more waste and chaos produced, the more opportunity, the more need for scrappers to turn it into order.

Scott

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 taterjuice

Well, not at all what I was getting at. But being your work for the pretty boys I'm talking bout I didn't really expect you would understand.

No, were on the same page.

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

...and everyone is scrapping polyester shirts at $25 a lb.

At that price, I'll be diggin' thru the old closet...

Originally Posted by DiamondN

At that price, I'll be diggin' thru the old closet...

Come to think about it, what do we pay for the polyester shirt in the first place? $75 ????

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