Nebraska scrap prices - What Goes Up must come Down

New prices in town today:

Short Iron $60/ton
Long Iron 50/ton
Shred 30/ton

Staff of 4 now down to 2.

I was talking with a scrapper friend who goes to the yards more than I do. According to the yard owner, prices are going to fall about 25% soon. They may stop paying for shred. That can't be good!

Our local yard is hanging on, but they're not growing anywhere!

There's a feeder yard here that is down to paying $20/ton. Owner was saying that he makes $100 per 40 yard roll-off full that gets picked up there.

Last I was at Sims downtown, it was at $50/ton for shred.

Prepared and unprepared dropped $ 40 n/t here on Monday. The good news, the price cannot go down much more before I have to pay the yard to take it. Then it has to go up.

With these low prices it is assumed more scrap is being sent to the landfills. This might create an economic hardship for the country. Maybe the eco friendly will pressure the government for a subsidy for the scrap metal business. After all we have bail outs and subsidies for all kinds of businesses, why not scrap metal? BTW I hope you know that this is said with tongue in cheek.

Edit - wrong thread.