I've been reading these boards for awhile and have read many stories in this particular section and have found interest in many of them! A lot has been said about winter scrapping and cross country (or state) pick ups and drop offs. But not much (if anything) has been said about scrapping on an island. That's where I come in :cool: My name is Chad and I am the owner of Sustainable Solutions Hawaii, a Honolulu based e-waste and metal recycler. To my knowledge, we (by "we" I mean my friend and I) are the only company that offers free pick-up of e-waste (and free pick-up of CRTs with e-waste pick-up). Earlier this year, we secured a job hauling and processing all the e-waste from a local junk removal company (by far the largest on the island of Oahu). I thought I'd use this section to kind of peak a look at scrapping on an island with a little less than a million people.
A little Oahu scrapping background:
We have 3 main scrap metal buyers open to the public: Okuda Metal (does not buy scrap steel), Reynold's Recycling (a chain of recyclers operating out of shipping containers better suited to buying bottles and cans through Hawaii's HI-5 recycling program), and Island Recycling (by far the largest and most knowledgeable and most capable of the 3). Island Recycling is also a chain operating out of about 4 different locations. The catch is that all their scrap is trucked daily back to their main facility nearly 25 miles away. The cost of this passed onto the public (scrap prices and significantly lower at their satellite locations). They also do not buy circuit boards.
11 March 2014
We normally do our rounds on Fridays but we received a call this morning regarding some spent, 55-gal transmission fluid drums that needed to cleared from a warehouse. The owner of the warehouse told me he had about 20 so we were expecting two trips (we use a GMC Savana panel van). We arrive and it turns out he has closer to fifty. While not normally a problem, we didn't have the time to process the drums (for the yards in metro Honolulu, the drums must be sawed in half) and each round trip from his location to the yard and back is nearly about an hour and a half (30 minute drive one-way). We were able to clear our inventory of steel, copper, aluminium, and insulated wire as well as take 2 of his loads (we're going to finish the job this Friday). In total, we cashed in on a little more than 1000 lbs. of steel with absolutely no processing in between. Just loaded the barrels and dropped them off. We would've never had to leave the truck if we didn't have to get out at the weight station to get paid.
Coming later this week: I am expecting a 10' box truck full of servers, computers, and monitors this week and a few dialysis machines next week (all fluids drained and clean). Might have to lease a box truck for the weekend :]
Below: The beautiful blue sky above Kapolei/Campbell Industrial Park about 30 minutes outside of Honolulu with the 73MW "H-Power" Waste-to-Energy plant in the background. And yes, that is just mountains of scrap metal *drool*
