Collection bins getting bigger and bigger and bigger and..........

When i first started scrapping i was very proud and excited about my shoe box totes full of separated material. I even got a kick out of going to the scrap yard every other Saturday for a $40 payout (about a quarter of that went to gas for the trip there and back.) Then the shoe box totes became medium flat rate boxes, then Large Priority mail boxes, then slowly became larger totes that i had found (not for everything, i still use the shoe box tote for brass for example, i don't come across much of it.) Now i am up 24x18x18 boxes with the flaps taped up to hold more material for my low recovery wire and aluminum. I used to take whatever i had every other Saturday morning. I still go every other Saturday, sometimes more, but I don't let myself take a box that isn't full to the brim. Today i would be pissed if my payout was anything less than at least $100 for an extremely slow couple weeks. The more i acquire the bigger my boxes must be before i let it go, anyone else have the same AMAZING problem?

I took today off work to get the Scrap Room (converted garage) cleaned up before i go camping all weekend. Planned on using the scrap yard cash for site fees, gas, ice, and such. Now that it is cleaned up and organized, i don't want to cash it in because my boxes aren't full!!! I'm going to do it anyway, that's what i used a vacation day for, but i really don't want to. I don't think I am becoming a hoarder, or becoming greedy, but if i waited til my boxes were full (like next weekend) my payout would probably be at least $100 more.

Oh well, it's a really, really, really good problem to have. Off to the yard i go ;(

lol, addicting isn't it? and we start setting standards for ourselves, I've done the same thing - ''I'm not turning this bucket of wire in until it's overflowing'' for instance.

Coffee cans -> 5 gallon buckets -> large totes -> garbage cans. It keeps growing!

Seriously, at this rate I will need a processing facility this time next year. I refuse to let it take over my whole house, it stays in the garage except for a couple barrels behind my shed. If I run out of room in my garage Ima start leasing y'alls!!!

LOL...mine will be cheapest...2 cases an a good cigar. :p

Going from totes to gaylords just might kill me the kick it'll give me. Heh

Sirscrapalot - Don't aim for success if you want it; just do what you love and believe in, and it will come naturally. - David Frost

YES! In just 6 weeks I have gone from paper ream boxes to 20x20x20 boxes. I picked up 2 places this morning due to some of my advertising and on the way home a Copy Plus store that is going out of business called. I'm stockpiled now and still have one more pick up to make...and, it is only Friday. I'm going out of town next week for a wedding and then gone a week on vacation....now I'm kinda regretting that...but hey, I'll have a lot of work when I come home in both pick ups and in breakdowns and to pay for vacation!

I was still using 5 gallon buckets for scrap at this time last year... Now I'm using garbage cans and fill them up almost as fast as I can cash them in. It's a pretty great problem to have, until you have so many full that you can't move around in your garage

I NEED MORE ROOM! AAARRRRGGGGHHHHH :mad:

common phrase of a busy scrapper.:D

The "not enough room" problem is a good problem to have. I am seriously considering setting up in a small warehouse facility (about 235 a month 300 square feet includes electric. I know that I can clear that every month, but it has so many other advantages such as being able to fill gaylords and such that will net more money.

My biggest container is my trailer. That has paid for itself several fold. It stores my steel. Before the trailer I had to set my steel on the road for other scrappers to take.

Another nice container that I have is the plastic shell from a dishwasher. I removed all of the steel and everything else except for one nice bracket that serves as a nice handle for dragging it around.

Keep expanding those containers!

The best investment I've ever made was buying four of those carts that they used to put the TV/VCR on in school when we'd have to watch films. I just bought three more big ones & two little ones, too. When you can stack your stuff on those & roll them around the garage it exponentially increases your storage capacity. Some of the containers in the pics below have become woefully insufficient for their categories, ie: power supplies, CD/DVD drives... Now I should be able to put full size bins up for every category of big stuff along one wall of the garage, and have two smaller carts for those odds&ends that keep popping up.

http://www.renebates.com/bates117/11.JPG

http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/7756/715ou.jpg

http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/2937/717ku.jpg

http://img195.imageshack.us/img195/8654/716pp.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by auminer

The best investment I've ever made was buying four of those carts that they used to put the TV/VCR on in school when we'd have to watch films. I just bought three more big ones & two little ones, too. When you can stack your stuff on those & roll them around the garage it exponentially increases your storage capacity. Some of the containers in the pics below have become woefully insufficient for their categories, ie: power supplies, CD/DVD drives... Now I should be able to put full size bins up for every category of big stuff along one wall of the garage, and have two smaller carts for those odds&ends that keep popping up.

http://www.renebates.com/bates117/11.JPG

http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/7756/715ou.jpg

http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/2937/717ku.jpg

http://img195.imageshack.us/img195/8654/716pp.jpg

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The hard drives in that picture look very familiar :)

I used to scrap out of an apartment, and when my wife and I were house shopping as our lease was about to end, this house had a great addition that was perfect for what I wanted to do with it... And my wife is happy that I no longer was using the second bathroom as my scrap collection.
http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/...ps3d1cb7d0.jpg
With a quarter acre of land in a 300 population town.
http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/...psf54d6af5.jpg

30x50 shop

Nice place! Nice chevy aswell! That pole building is something what we want to build on our 2 acre lot.

55 gallon drums work good for stuff, i like the plastic ones, have one for motors/transformers and one for clean aluminum another one for insulated copper wire

Man I am growing as well and I love it! I went from like 10 butter tubs to 15 gallon ice cream containers, to 41 5 gallon buckets and now I'm at 55 gallon drums. I am one of the lucky ones with a huge 24X32 shop that I use almost exclusively to recycle in. I'm not bragging, just saying the room has allowed me to grow exponentially.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by burrage1

I am one of the lucky ones with a huge 24X32 shop that I use almost exclusively to recycle in.

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Living the dream, man! I'm trying to talk the missus into a 24/7 access mini-storage unit. I know whatever size I get I'ma wish I'd gotten at least the next one up. 24x32 would be AWESOME!

Ug. You guys are making me wish i was back in the game. I too started with nothing more than some random cardboard boxes i could find in my garage, or an old small plastic house trashcan.

It's wild, now that i think of it. It took me 1 year to go from those small bins, to a 40 yard roll off for my tin (picked up, dropped off once a week), 2 HUGE 15ftx8ftx8ft metal bins for my plastic (picked up twice a week), 2 55 gallon drums for my #2 bright, gaylords for my low and mid grade, and gaylords for pretty much everything else electronic scrap produces.

Just amazing. All this in a 5500 sq/ft shop, i used half of that for my operation.

NEVER give up. ALWAYS look for ways to expand. ALWAYS!

It's also funny thinking about all the places i had my operation at. Started initially on my tailgate, just working on whatever i could fit in the bed of my pickup (used to get only 1 load of electronics a week, if i was lucky!). Then biz picked up, so i converted my garage. Then i needed a small storage unit, after a few months of that, upgraded to the largest unit they had, THEN needed *2* of them, and FINALLY ending up in my shop. Just amazing how it progresses.

Right now I'm trying to fill a cardboard drum of #2 copper. It started off with medium boxes, then milk crates, then 5 gallon buckets,to now.