Starting up my E-Waste business - recent load, plans, business cards - pics included

Hi guys,

If you haven't seen any of my other posts yet, my intro thread is here: http://www.scrapmetalforum.com/intro...rom-maine.html and I have made a few other threads since joining.

I have only been scrapping around a month or so - trying to learn what type of business that I want to run. After doing my first few loads and making some profit, spending a lot of time researching the many different types of scrapping options here on the forums, watching as many videos as possible, and talking to several knowledgeable people including Mick - and assessing my situation, I've decided to focus and specialize on e-waste. There are several reasons for this, including; I don't have the funds to get a trailer, the location to store it, I live on the 3rd floor of an apartment building, no consistent assistance for heavy things, freon removal becomes an issue, and a few other reasons that push me away from wanting to do big stuff.

I recently got a 10x15 locker, so I can use that for temporary storage and housing of my electronics as I receive them and prepare to sell/haul them. This is working well already, as I have it nearly full with the stuff I've gotten from my 9-5 job. (Pics are going to be below.) I am in the process of making flyers to post everywhere and business cards to be able to hand out.

The reason I'm posting this thread is specifically to get thoughts an opinions from people who focus primarily on e-waste. My thoughts are, as of now, not to accept TVs. At least temporarily, the problem of disposing them, and the fact there's an unlimited amount of them (not an unlimited amount of storage), and minimal ROI for time compared to other electronics is also a big reason. If anyone else reading this is in a situation similar to me, do you do this also? Or, is charging at least a small amount something that some people do?

The reason this is a challenge is because I want to advertise on my flyers for free haul away of the electronics. I don't want to specify that I charge on some stuff. Not sure what to do here.

My plan for my flyers is to use the ones that you can rip off at the bottom. Those seem very important since people want to do as little as possible. (like writing down a phone number.) I need to see if business cards charge you more (I've seen the cheap Avery method from Walmart stated here) to imprint on the back location. If so, I might just include the things that I'l pick up on the front. I plan on having "Ayotte's Electronic Recycling" with a recycling logo, my contact info, and then "List of items I recycle on the back"if there isn't an additional charge.

Starting me off on the right foot - I have an arrangement with a "trash guy" for the self storage I recently got with. He removes/collects stuff when people move out/dont pay their fees. He's going to give me all the electronics I want.

In addition to this, me and my bud got the IT/Finance department to sign off on giving us a bunch of the electronics in our "Graveyard".

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...629_173832.jpg
This is the first batch.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...629_173849.jpg
This is the rest of what I got.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...629_174030.jpg
All of these are coming (hopefully) soon, but the IT department wouldn't let me take them until they have removed all of the hard drives. Sucks that I can't get them full, but I'm still extremely grateful and appreciative to eventually have my hands on the rest. There's another 10 or so older towers that aren't pictured here.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...629_174024.jpg
Does anyone know what these three are? I can't quite tell, and we were told to only take monitors/printers at this time, so I couldn't touch them.

Pretty awesome, huh?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...629_174048.jpg
The last thing that's up in the Graveyard are all these phones. Do you think this is a little jackpot, or are these very little profit?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...625_204333.jpg
I understand this has been discussed before, but I can't find a general consensus about a) do you spend the time to remove this extra to get the copper, and b) what you find the easiest most reliable way. I'm sorry if I missed a link and if someone will sarcastically provide one for me!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...625_212335.jpg
I cannot get this thing apart for the life of me. Am I missing something? Or this is a hammer-job?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...625_200005.jpg
Initially I didn't understand why keyboards were sought after. After reading a bunch of threads here, I did find that the plastic sheet is coated with silver. With that being said, do you keep these in a pile all to their own?

In addition to that, I have a few other things that I wanted to make sure I was doing correctly.

DVD drives are always worth taking apart (quickly) for the boards, correct? Their boards are high grade.
CDS and floppys are my choice whether or not to pull apart? It seems like these would be better left to sell as whole.
On the ends of the copper wire ribbons, do I take off the attachment and bin these? My research leans to yes.
I'm still trying to learn about the different grades of boards. Initially I thought all mobos are green, and high, but I see that some are brown. A little confused here.

Thank you for your time reading this. I'm very sorry if some of my questions have obvious answers. I try to use the search function recently, but some key words are very difficult because of their overuse.

I'm really excited to start my business up. I believe I may even have a buyer for all of my boards, locally, too.

Thanks again,

-James

First, when it comes to tv's I found a guy that brakes down tv's for the copper so I give all my tv's and momitors to him and he gives me all the boards and he gets rid of the tubes. It's like getting free low grade boards, I take all the ic chips and heat sinks off. I have never found a brown board in a computer tower. Red,blue,gold and green, brown boards are always low grade. I sell all my higher grade boards to Ewasted, you'll find him in the buyers section and he has about the best prices. If you have a buyer local to you bring him some of the boards you have and ask him to hel sort them, every buyer has diffrant sorting. I hope this helps a little, good luck with your bussness. Looks like your well on your way.

not trying to b an a** but, every single question you asked I found on the forum. yup its a pain in the butt, but its called paying the dues. it has taken me a year to learn what little I know about E waste. chasing ewaste , in my opinion, is chasing a dead horse. like get rich quick catolytic converters a few years back, every one and all their cousins is getting into it. it is a finite commodity due to the price of gold. new tech is here to avoid expensive gold as much as they can. just my .02

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Originally Posted by happyscraper

First, when it comes to tv's I found a guy that brakes down tv's for the copper so I give all my tv's and momitors to him and he gives me all the boards and he gets rid of the tubes. It's like getting free low grade boards, I take all the ic chips and heat sinks off. I have never found a brown board in a computer tower. Red,blue,gold and green, brown boards are always low grade. I sell all my higher grade boards to Ewasted, you'll find him in the buyers section and he has about the best prices. If you have a buyer local to you bring him some of the boards you have and ask him to hel sort them, every buyer has diffrant sorting. I hope this helps a little, good luck with your bussness. Looks like your well on your way.

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Thank you very much. I do want to speak with this local buyer to see if his prices (with the shipping I would have to pay for ewasted's pricing) are competitive and to see how he sorts. I don't know if I can find someone who does something with the TVs like you have going on, but that would be an awesome setup.

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Originally Posted by olddude

not trying to b an a** but, every single question you asked I found on the forum. yup its a pain in the butt, but its called paying the dues. it has taken me a year to learn what little I know about E waste. chasing ewaste , in my opinion, is chasing a dead horse. like get rich quick catolytic converters a few years back, every one and all their cousins is getting into it. it is a finite commodity due to the price of gold. new tech is here to avoid expensive gold as much as they can. just my .02

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Thanks. I don't think you're being an a**. I have learned a TREMENDOUS amount from searches, but sometimes it's difficult due to the amount of threads there are on similar subjects. A lot of the time you guys don't go into the basics because you are experienced. I'm going to continue searching to find my answers. If you don't feel like supplying them for me because performing some searches is "paying my dues", that's completely understood. My other intention was to show my intentions for my business, my starting point/starting load and a few comments. Not just my questions.

I also don't understand your second part of your comment. Are you saying that you feel it's not a good business model to run because there's a finite amount of e-waste to collect due to how many things aren't made with the gold that there used to be? Maybe that's true, but I think with the amount of 'junk' electronics out there, I would still have a lot of time before I run out of my finite supply. In time I could change my business model if this is something I find as being true.

ok you can dissagree. I just gave an opinion. I am in the ewaste business. and my projection is 5 years. and you need to go big. I do wish you well. don't get me wrong. my first year was dealing with computer shops churches and individuals. I did not break even when fuel and time are a consideration. due to the economy the shops have dropped to half, many have gone out of business. ewaste buyers are paying 70 % of what they did last year and I expect for this trend to continue. if you hasve the resorces to go big there is a lot of money there over the next 5 years, but think in terms of warehouses and semis not storage lockers and pickup trucks. understand I am giving you a years worth of hard earned ecperience here, good luck in what ever you choose to do.

P.S. the silver in key boards is the silver greay stripes on the mylar (sometimes black) it is easy to process. there is about .10 worth in each keyboard.

a heavy hammer and a 1 in wood chisel is one of your most important tools when working e waste.

* This is a "chinese motherboard" but not a "brown" board.

http://boardsort.com/socket478.jpg

* On the copper/alum heat sink if I can't sell them then I clip the copper ends then sell it as mixed, like a radiator.
* On the slot processor, I think the lil black things on each side of the fan are barbed on the other end and might go all the way thru the board (try prying with a screwdriver).
* On the Mylar (2)sheets, there is a blank plastic sheet in the middle, just hang them up on a pegboard hook till you have a big handfull to sell (maybe on Ebay).
* Personally I pull the boards off CD/DVD's and sell the floppy's whole to my buyer.
* If I had it to do over again, I would not take tv's at least without charging.
* The gentleman from KY (Joebob) just had a posting about "hammering down" his computer ends with his home made hammer so he can sell them or refine them. I save mine and sell them by the bucketful. Some guys think their making more by breaking the ends down and removing the plastic.
* Hope I covered most of it, the 3 "things" I can't tell for sure what they are for the glare.

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Originally Posted by Mechanic688

* This is a "chinese motherboard" but not a "brown" board.
* On the Mylar sheets, there is a blank plastic sheet in the middle, just hang them up on a pegboard hook till you have a big handfull to sell (maybe on Ebay).
* If I had it to do over again, I would not take tv's at least without charging.

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Thanks for all of the extremely valuable information and experience/knowlege that you've given, Mechanic. I have seen a ton of posts where you just put links, and that's what I was expecting if you responded! Call me surprised and appreciative. My mobo is exactly what yours looks like, so I guess it's a chinese one and not a brown one. Just to clarify, when you say hang up on a pegboard, did you mean hang up the plastic sheetin the middle (just the plastic) or the silver coated one? The wording was funny so I just wanted to make sure I understood. I think I'm making a good decision not doing TVs - however, can you elaborate on your "If I had it to do over again, I would not take tv's at least without charging." comment?

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Originally Posted by olddude

ok you can dissagree. I just gave an opinion. I am in the ewaste business. and my projection is 5 years. and you need to go big. I do wish you well. don't get me wrong. my first year was dealing with computer shops churches and individuals. I did not break even when fuel and time are a consideration. due to the economy the shops have dropped to half, many have gone out of business. ewaste buyers are paying 70 % of what they did last year and I expect for this trend to continue. if you hasve the resorces to go big there is a lot of money there over the next 5 years, but think in terms of warehouses and semis not storage lockers and pickup trucks. understand I am giving you a years worth of hard earned ecperience here, good luck in what ever you choose to do.

P.S. the silver in key boards is the silver greay stripes on the mylar (sometimes black) it is easy to process. there is about .10 worth in each keyboard.

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Thank you very much. Since I work 9-5 with decent income, this is strictly a side business/part time job for me. If a year to five years is the only true projection for this business, even if that's true, that's still a lot better than sitting home doing nothing! Or, I can put myself in the position to do your standard scrap by that point.

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Thank you very much. Since I work 9-5 with decent income, this is strictly a side business/part time job for me. If a year to five years is the only true projection for this business, even if that's true, that's still a lot better than sitting home doing nothing! Or, I can put myself in the position to do your standard scrap by that point.

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By that time your business may have evolved into something bigger and better, quite a few people here have "stepped up to the next level". I prefer to stay a little peon.

** I also pull all the little silver flat plastics that wire some stuff together in printers (like ribbon wire but not) and I'm saving them till I get a large quantity. I know the ends are silver and it may be that way all the way thru. They go from board to board.

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Originally Posted by Mechanic688

By that time your business may have evolved into something bigger and better, quite a few people here have "stepped up to the next level".

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That's my exact thinking. Never know where I can take it to. Btw, I had edited my response to you.

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Just to clarify, when you say hang up on a pegboard, did you mean hang up the plastic sheetin the middle (just the plastic) or the silver coated one? The wording was funny so I just wanted to make sure I understood. I think I'm making a good decision not doing TVs - however, can you elaborate on your "If I had it to do over again, I would not take tv's at least without charging." comment?

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I take the piece of plastic out of the middle, there's no silver on it and that gets thrown away (or put in your plastic bin to be recycled) then I just hang up the silver ones, No sense wasting a box or bucket on them.

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however, can you elaborate on your "If I had it to do over again, I would not take tv's at least without charging."

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In the beginning we worked out a "deal" with a nonprofit. We would take all their TV's/monitors and we would buy all the old computers and haul away the rest of the old electronics/kitchen appliances.
Wellllll, We hauled out over 350 tv/monitors and by the time we got back there all the computers had disappeared, and no one knew where they had gone,,,, (how convenient)!!! We definitely were used. They have another company now taking all their electronic crap, so after I strip a few tv's insides, I "donate" the plastic and tube back to them out at their recycle bin!!! What goes around, comes around.

Did they force you to take the tv's first?

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Originally Posted by mikeinreco

Did they force you to take the tv's first?

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Well they didn't stick a gun in my ribs but yes the tv's had to go first to make room to get other stuff out of the warehouse, it was full of all kinds of donated furniture and all those tv's.
Here, this will give you an idea of what we started out with.

http://i1135.photobucket.com/albums/.../101_05672.jpg

http://i1135.photobucket.com/albums/.../101_05572.jpg
This was a 26' box truck.

I know the feeling but I would have been pissed when all the computers were gone........Did you flip your lid and how many puters was it

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Originally Posted by mikeinreco

I know the feeling but I would have been pissed when all the computers were gone........Did you flip your lid and how many puters was it

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From what we were told there was between 200-300. Their "employees" that help them out are people that have to perform "community service". I wonder why,,,???

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Originally Posted by olddude

ok you can dissagree. I just gave an opinion. I am in the ewaste business. and my projection is 5 years. and you need to go big. I do wish you well. don't get me wrong. my first year was dealing with computer shops churches and individuals. I did not break even when fuel and time are a consideration. due to the economy the shops have dropped to half, many have gone out of business. ewaste buyers are paying 70 % of what they did last year and I expect for this trend to continue. if you hasve the resorces to go big there is a lot of money there over the next 5 years, but think in terms of warehouses and semis not storage lockers and pickup trucks. understand I am giving you a years worth of hard earned ecperience here, good luck in what ever you choose to do.

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After months of research and experimentation with ewaste, I have to agree with Old's conclusions. He truly is providing you with years of hard earned knowledge. Listen to him.

OLDDUDE is particularly astute in his assessment that the opportunity exists if one were to go big over the next 5 years.

Even with the most important hurdle solved (available capital to invest) in "going big," I'm stymied by the inability to source the quantity of old computer towers necessary for a BIG model to succeed. So, you see, even with capital resources, there are still seemingly insurmountable challenges (e.g., sourcing, storage, transport, etc). Based on my calculations, going big would require a minimum purchase of 100,000 pounds of computer towers (between 7,000 - 10,000 pre-1998 towers). Anyone know where those can be had at roughly what Dell is paying Goodwill per pound for them? If so, you've got yourself a business. If not, listen to Olddude. He knows.

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Originally Posted by martyweil

After months of research and experimentation with ewaste, I have to agree with Old's conclusions. He truly is providing you with years of hard earned knowledge. Listen to him.

OLDDUDE is particularly astute in his assessment that the opportunity exists if one were to go big over the next 5 years.

Even with the most important hurdle solved (available capital to invest) in "going big," I'm stymied by the inability to source the quantity of old computer towers necessary for a BIG model to succeed. So, you see, even with capital resources, there are still seemingly insurmountable challenges (e.g., sourcing, storage, transport, etc). Based on my calculations, going big would require a minimum purchase of 100,000 pounds of computer towers (between 7,000 - 10,000 pre-1998 towers). Anyone know where those can be had at roughly what Dell is paying Goodwill per pound for them? If so, you've got yourself a business. If not, listen to Olddude. He knows.

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Thanks, Marty. It's not that I don't believe olddude, but it's going to be a part time/side business for me. Essentially, I want to scrap, but due to my limitations, this is the most logical way. As it has been stated, even if I can only do it for a couple years before the supply runs out, maybe my business will evolve into something else by that time. That's still a couple years of profiting, learning, and working hard (in addition to my 9-5 M-F job.)

No matter how right old dude may be...don't let his words clamp your enthusiasm! Businesses aren't started by knowing your may fail. But, I do agree future electronics won't be worth much.

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Originally Posted by Koldes

It's not that I don't believe olddude

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My point wasn't that you weren't believing what he was saying; my point was to listen to what he was saying.

That, however, wasn't even the main point of my reply. While I think you should listen, I was trying to elevate the key point of Old's message, which, if I may be so bold as to condense it into a nutshell is "go big or go broke." This is where I'm in complete agreement with Old. And, to move his point a step further, I was trying to point out how difficult it is to go big even if you have the capital to invest in the business. The fact is that acquiring a critical mass of computer towers seems to be an insurmountable obstacle at least from my point of view. Perhaps someone else has solved this problem. And likely, I assume, if someone has solved it, they're probably not going to share the secret here (although they can PM me).

my intention was not to burst any ones bubble, or to throw water on their dreams. I am a realist, with a lot of life experience and common sence. I am a completely up front person. when I made my statements, I didnt have all the facts. didn't know this was going to be a part time business for you, or that you had a well paying full time job that you seem to be very happy with. that is a completely different game with different stratigy and rules.

It is very tough on all scrappers right now, and I believe it is going to get a lot tougher. the smaller you are the harder it is going to be to turn any kind of profit. this has happend many times over the decades. I believe this time is different.

a few years back the government decided to help out the car business, "were here to help you" next time you drive down auto row, count the vacant lots. state governments and fed government have decided to help stamp out the thieves and straighten out the scrap business (were here to help you). look back a year ago. I stated on this forum exactly to the letter what is happening in state after state today.

in ewaste most e waste dealers of any size are currently subsidised by the government except in the case of computers. i.e. low grade boards .15 per lb, shipping low grade boards .33 per lb.

in computers the technowlegy is changing so fast you cant just keep up you have to get ahead of the game. in the very near future, computers as we know them today will be gone, mylar screens will replace monitors, and your tower or lap top will be in your shirt pocket in the form of a cell phone. it is already here. just waiting in the wings.

Old dude has hit the nail on the head. You can see it in the quantity of pre 2000 computers. As the chinese boards start to come more and more into the market prices will be adjusted accordingly by refiners, which trickles down to the buyers here which will affect the sellers(us) bottom lines. The other problem is competing with those that are buying towers at 100 times what they are worth. Check out some of your local gov auctions. One that I followed was for 5 pallets of dell optiplex towers. Each pallet had 40 towers. To me my top bid would have been about $1200.00 Well the final price was $4800.00 two factors are working here. Either someone bought them to refurbish and resell, or the competition is coming from overseas...china. The more I watch these auctions the more I believe it is the latter of the two. The auctions stipulate that winning bidders MUST pick up with either a 48 ft trailer or a 40 ft shipping container. Now most of the auctions that I watch are pretty close to shipping ports up here in the north east. So if you add everything up it has to be overseas buyers that are pricing the small timers out since labor and overhead is so cheap. Just my two cents...but then again I like conspiracy theory's.