A little taken back....

Ventured to the scrap yard yesterday and had a fantastic talk with the owner whom I had not seen in a while, upon pulling in I noticed huge amounts of scrap that people had just dropped out side the entrance. When I asked him about it he said it is amazing to him that aside of the amount coming into the yard being down people just dropping stuff off and not even taking the time to get paid for it because they feel its just not worth it. How odd I thought, why go to all the trouble of hauling something to the yard and not even bothering to get paid for it. As we are all well aware pricing has been down for a while now, and I guess this is what happens to the "fly by night" "get rich quick" people who either don't like the thought of work or are not in this for the long haul. From I financial standpoint I am sure we have all become a little more selective of how we are managing our loads and separating our scrap. Bottom line money is money and to just flat out throw it away (especially right outside the yard) is silly. Seeing a bit of an increase in cleanouts in my neck of the woods and realizing that people are more than willing to pay to get rid of stuff just so they don't have to deal with it, getting paid for our time as well as again what we remove is a nice balance in the day of a scrapper!

The lazy factor at work again.

I keep telling you folks this is a good thing. ;)

For further info on the lazy factor, I direct all inquiries to my assistant S.Earch Box, Esq.

Sirscrapalot - Humanity is it's own worse enemy. - Anyone with half a brain.

I have seen this once. When I spoke to one of the yard guys about it and he said A guy showed up after the yard closed he told the security guard he needed his trailer empty for the next day as he was headed for a bigger payday. The security guard let him unload it by the gate but wouldn't get paid for it. It may have been 700-800lbs. I guess in his mind $40-50 in steel was going to hold up I bigger better load.

Always plan ahead and have a back up plan or 2 ready!

Just remember guys...with steel being what it is right now...i sometimes PAYS you to even drop it off for free (like the above case) in order to get to the next job that pays FAR more than say $50-75 for several HUNDRED pounds of stuff. I know that might be counterintuitive, but it makes far more sense when you have a job that is paying say $300-500 waiting on a $75 load of stupid steel to get off your trailer. SOMETIMES you have to leave a few bucks to MAKE more.

I will be honest...my last load I took of steel from my ewaste and some extra I got for free, just had to load it...when I got the check, after gas and factoring my time....I would have rather not gone. $60 in steel, drive 15 mi either way with my trailer and probably 2-3 hours of my time total (NOT including the time to gather all mine at home)...I can make more than that doing just about anything.

Now if it were brass or copper...even wire...fine...but this amount of money for that about of time and effort for steel...not very excited to deal with it ...at all.

I'm of the same opinion here. I stockpile steel in my garage and when the pile gets big enough, I let another scrapper load it up and haul it in for half the ticket. He's not the most reliable, and there's times when I'm tempted to haul it in, just to get the space back. But he ususally shows up within a week and a $20-$40 ticket reminds me that it's just not worth my time.

Steel is a process of breaking things down, so if you break down you are goanna get some steel, even if you are not picking up steel as is!