My non-ferrous yard going down.

I new this would probably happen but Busters my local yard who supplies me with roll offs free is about to close.

He is down to 4 days a week.and it's not looking good. he is paying .03 and is selling for .06 just not enough volume. He is also setting on several 100 ton he paid .08 for He has laid every one off and like I said is down to 4 days a week.

I suggested a spring clean up day for our little town. They used to have one here sponsored by the VFD but haven't had one since the new Chief has been here. If one of you guys who have held this type of event would call me or e mail me I could use some advise to judge weather this is worth the gamble or not. or any other advise that may help this guy out.

mcwhelp@gmail.com 1 850 722 1000 thx, mcw

I can't help too much, but I've done E-Waste events. What can make or break you is the advertising costs. Outside of advertising, the event should be all profit.

I hope that someone here can help you more than I can!

I'm talking about a general spring event not just e waste.

Also I headlined it "non Ferris yard when I actually meant Ferris yard

And, that's why I am hoping that someone can give you more knowledge than I can!

Advertising costs will still be huge, though.

matador: "I'll tell you what I know. It will sound like silence, though!" ;)

Sounds kind lame but how about a bunch of "Save Busters" flyers posted around town with the date of the spring clean up? Have the local paper write up a story about how to help a local business out. If you get interest in doing an event, then get with other local business owners to help out a local business. Have them bring in there scrap heck some of them may just donate the metal to him and not expect payment...

It's sad ....

Sponsoring an event might provide him with a temporary stop gap but if it doesn't fix the underlying problem it's only prolonging the agony.

If he isn't profitable he won't be able to survive. The kind thing might be to help him find some kind of exit strategy where he doesn't lose everything.

This doesn't directly address your question but in my small town our local scrap yard dropped a roll-off at the local American Legion. They put a banner on the side of it stating they would take any scrap metal and "help out" the local legion. The metal is all donated to the roll off and I imagine they give back maybe 10 % to the legion.

today was the first day of our spring clean up. The city sends out a flyer to all the residents with the water bill. The city is all for it because then it helps with people not just dumping stuff all over and then they have to clean it up either way so it helps them out. My company gets all the recyclables and the city gets all the trash. Just today we filled 3 40 yrd bins and there's still 3 days left. I just have to supply 2 guys to help unload trucks when they get backed up which helps with their labor costs. So it's a win win. We only have 10,000 population here but people have lots to take in. They move the clean up to a different location each day to be closer to different neighbor hoods. The city even supplied doughnuts and coffee and bbq they were so happy. Any questions just ask or pm me don't want to give out to many secrets though so pm might be better.

That is 3 40 yrd bins of 😄🔋💻📱📠📺💵💵💵 the good stuff.

I am afraid that this will happen all across the country. Steel prices are killing the yards. I have 19 yards here that are within 20 miles from my house (closest 5 miles furthest 19 miles). Less scrap and less workers. When the steel price dropped bad in Feb some places were holding large piles of steel while others were selling it as quick as they were getting it. Now most places have hardly any big piles of steel at all. The scary thing is that the smaller yards are selling everything. Used to have piles of Alum and gaylords of copper, wire, motors and such. But now it seems that they can't hold and wait out better prices, as it costs money to try and run a scrapyard. I have always thought of steel as what keeps the yards in business. Sure they make more money on the good stuff, but there was always lots and lots of steel. When I took in a small load of sheet iron 220 lbs the owner came out and shake my hand and thanked me for the business... I made a whopping $6.05 on the transaction. The yards need your metal now more than ever...

Thanks for all the insight. I know Buster will not survive it is a shame but a sad fact. what I am trying to accomplish is to help supplement the loss on the tons he is -.02 on to help him with a decent exit strategy. Thanks all.

I'd parter with someone like Mechanic was saying. It won't get him a lot of money, but if he makes anything, it'll help the bottom line.

Where is the yard. All I can offer is a prayer. Im in the same situation now, the lord wont give us more than we can handle.

Aaron with Stillwater.

Got a second bad check from my local yard, the last one it took over a month to make it good. Hate to see them in this shape, BUT, my non-ferrous pile is too big to work around any longer, and sadly it looks like a 40 mile drive to the next yard is in order.