Taking the next step....

Well the other day I get a text from a gentlemen who says he saw my ad and wanted to know if I still do electronics recycling. I told him yes, and we arranged a formal meeting this morning, so he could show me what he had. Remaining calm the entire time, I told him yes I could handle the amount he had and would get a couple of my guys to help me out. No pics or totals yet, but from my estimate there are probably 100-125 crt monitors, 100-150 desktops 25-40 printers, boxes of other motherboards, PCI cards, etc, and a couple of old telcom servers. Looking at it I immediately knew that I would need to get a storage unit since my current setup could not handle that amount of volume. Of course I'll be posting pics when I get everything together, but it was a pleasant surprise to say the least. I've been waiting a year and a half for this kind of connection, and am looking forward to the challenge. I'll keep those who are interested updated on my progress, total weight, etc. I'm also looking to keep my referrals with this company and gentlemen alive, so although he said he really didn't want anything for it, I'm going to give him a percentage. He can choose to do what he wants with it. Anyways, that's enough of me ranting for now. Thank you for this forum and all the members who have provided substance and advice, to not only me but countless others. Without this forum I would never have had this opportunity....

Well done Dude. That's how you get the ball rolling!

Silly question I'm sure, but are you set up to dispose of the CRTs once you strip them? If you were closer I'd offer to take them off your hands. I have no issues getting rid of the glass.

Sounds like a nice pay day coming up for you if all works out. An ya best post some pics or I'm gonna have to restrict your access to the cooler. ;)

Good luck an keep us updated on how things go.

Sirscraplot - Look, let me explain something to you. I'm not Mr. Lebowski. You're Mr. Lebowski. I'm the Dude. So that's what you call me. That, or His Dudeness … Duder … or El Duderino, if, you know, you're not into the whole brevity thing.

hahaha...thanks Sir. Love the quote by the way. With a load of monitors that size, Best buy is out of the option, but I did find a few locations, in the past, so it's time to find my contacts and get to work. He was also concerned about proper disposal, and I assured him that I recycle everything responsibly, which I do. I don't see a point in doing what we do, if you're not going to do it right. As the wise Hunter S. Thompson said "Anything worth doing, is worth doing right". Don't worry about the pics, there coming as soon as I get everything into my unit. Still working out the logistics and location, but I have a few days to prepare. Thanks again for your continued support and contribution to the forum Good Sir ;).

Score!!!!!!

Rent a cheap storage unit and just pay the guys to help you move the stuff........Do the breakdown yourself and reap all the benefits..........Just my opinion but a cheap storage building is the way to go also look for re-usable parts

Awesome sauce!! WTG and yes, be sure to post pics when you get them!

Nice score and I'm happy for you...if it were me though I'd be in a Rubber Room wearing a funny white jacket after processing that much ewaste.

Dude...that's a great score man!

Best advice I have is sort the towers by brand when you start and you can use the same tools and method in breaking them down.

Very good advice Pnut. Saves a lot of frustration an time.

I do the same with my towers, Hard drives, CD/DVD, Cables boxes, etc.

Sirscrapalot - Careful, man, there's a beverage here! - The Dude.

Hey Sirscrapalot, from one North Carolinian to the other, where/hopw do you get rid of CRTs? I just bought 198 for 7.35 from a local school system and I have an ABS Plastic buyer and theoretically I can get rid of them 20 at a time(by going to 4 different closish locations each time) in my county, but Id love to know if I can take them all somewhere at once.

I'll drop you a PM Steelmill. So as not to take away from Thedude's thread. ;)

Sirscrapalot - You want a toe? I can get you a toe, believe me. There are ways, Dude. You don't wanna know about it, believe me. - Walter Sobchak from The Big Lebowski

No worries Sir if the topic gets a little off base, then so be it. Thanks for the advise Pnut. I will definitely take your advise and run with it. Mike, I'm will no doubt be looking for resell-able parts and computers. The two guys that are helping me are my brother and a really close friend. I think we are going golfing after the pickup, so I'll probably pay for there rounds, and after rounds, if you get my drift. Pictures are coming on Saturday...

Alright kids, I only have one pic thus far. This is my storage unit after I unloaded the first trailer full. I brought a load home in my Expedition, but my 5 x 10 unit (I know its small) is jam packed. Thus far I have 107 desktops, 49 CRT monitors, 12 printers, and 2 old Dell servers. My best guess is there are probably 40-50 more towers and around 50-60 monitors, along with a huge box of keyboards/parts and one huge telecom server. All the hard drivers were pulled, and apparently someone got to most of the CPU's before I could. On a positive note, other then the fact I paid $0 for all materials, most everyone has several sticks of ram and at least 1-4 PCI cards in them. Going back next Saturday for the rest of the stuff, but I'll keep updating the thread with totals and pictures as I get them. In addition, the manger of my storage unit is going to give me an inclosed trailer next weekend for half price and also a break on my unit in the future. "I gotta say....Today was a good day".

http://s1276.photobucket.com/user/th...]=1&sort=1&o=0

http://i1276.photobucket.com/albums/...psd4f521ca.jpg

Very nice pic, you got room "stuff it". Don't forget to pay the rent I would not want to see it on storage wars.

Oh these will all be broken down and processed before the second months rent is due ;)

Ok ladies and gents, here are a couple more pics for you. This is my dungeon/work space. It's not much, and needs a complete overhaul, but it's what I got for now along with my storage unit. I've been sick the last few days, so that's hampered my ability and motivation to really get at it. I've separated and sorted most of the materials I've broken down thus far, and also put aside the items for resale. Has anyone had any luck selling Dell case fans, the green HD/CD/DVD/Floppy rails, or PCI blanks in the past? The majority of the Dell's are early mode Dimensions and GX series, but I do know that these can be used in other models as well. Ebay listings are here and there, obviously depending on the size/model it's intended for, but I figure with the quantity I'll have its worth a shot and see. I'll be posting some more pictures and giving some specifics on how much each model is worth base on my buyer. Hopefully I'll feel better over the next couple days. I'm picking up the other 50 computers and monitors, along with some telcom equipment on Saturday, so I don't have time to be sick. Hope everyone enjoys watching the piles get larger ;)

150-200 pounds of Power supplies, empty computer cases, aluminum, etc
http://i1276.photobucket.com/albums/...psc9d0e127.jpg
Some vintage computers on the left and the various scrap or sorted items for resale
http://i1276.photobucket.com/albums/...ps4e5246bf.jpg
Surprised they didn't strip all of these as well. I have 6-7 right now and am hoping for a few more, since most of the computers remaining are this particular dell model.
http://i1276.photobucket.com/albums/...ps4d97e8a2.jpg

I've always thrown the green rails in with the ABS. But, I do this as a second job. I need to focus on the higher dollar stuff. If you're part time at E-Waste, you could probably get enough money for a pizza or something cool like that.

I grade E-Waste on a semicircle if you will. One like this:
http://www.hyperflight.com/images/se...l_symmetry.gif

The stuff on the left is higher in value, due to higher prices for E-Scrap, and/or higher value for collectors parts.
The stuff on the right is valuable, because I can resell it.

The stuff that isn't all that old, but is too old to refurbish goes in the middle. Sadly, the low point seems to be the Pentium 4 machines (Socket 423 excluded). You seem to have plenty of them. Don't worry- I get tons of them, too. I like to spend as little of time on processing a P4 as possible. The only thing that's less profitable is an old Mac. They take forever to disassemble.

But, those white machines will be more valuable in scrap.

My rules on what to keep:
*Power Supplies Greater than 400W, with SATA connectors
*RAM that is 1GB/Stick or larger. I keep DDR2/512 sticks, because I had many desktops come in without RAM.
*Hard Drives 80GB or larger that are IDE or SATA. I don't keep SCSI drives.
*Dual Core Computers
*Any Mac that is G5 or Intel, or the iBook G4 and Mac Mini G4.
*Higher end graphics cards. PCI Express only. If it's older than that, it's E-Waste.
*Any Black colored desktop drive that can play a DVD. I had two pallets come from a school that didn't put any optical drive in their machines.

And, that's about it. The rest I scrap. I'll resell processors that bring at least $15 online. That's a fair price. If it's worth $3.99 with free shipping, it gets soldby the pound.

-----------------------------
Hopefully that helps a little. I took apart about 300 machines over the last four months. I didn't go to the funny farm. I just turned on the oldies, and did it from 9AM to 7PM. It's actually pretty enjoyable work for me. I think you'll be fine. Plus, you're paying rent. That's incentive enough to go faster!

Why are you reading this? It's midnight. You could be taking a Dell apart!

Thanks Matador for the advise. I also do this part-time, with the dream of doing it full-time if I can get enough residual clients. I only have a few thus far. Some of the older vintage stuff I have needs hard drives and case covers (I'm not sure why they didn't put the covers back on after taking out most of the processors) but I know a few of them should bring in more then scrap value. I need to contact FLimits and see what she thinks. With most of the computers not having any hard drives or CPU's my bottom line will be less, but still a nice haul regardless.

On those older ones, check for AT powers supplies. They can sometimes be a seller on eBay.


AT Power Supplies

It's not enough money for me to do. I need as much scrapping time as possible. As a hobby/side job, though, it can be worth the money. They're very easy to test.

Some of the cool older vintage stuff is desirable.

---------------------------

If you find any DVD drives, I'd look on eBay for those too. I have to keep all of mine, because I got many systems with no optical drives. A new DVD drive is about $20. A used one can be worth $5-10 each.

This guy has them for $11 with free shipping: DVD Drives

I bet he'll sell the remaining three. Even with shipping, that could be a decent chunk of change. Plus, they're super easy to test. Just pop in a DVD.

Alright well it's been awhile since I've been on so figure it was time for an update. After paying for gas to and from one of our buyers on here that's local, my e-waste returned around $725 with around at least $1,000 more in items that I'm selling right now on Ebay and other sources. Another $300-$325 from local trips to the yard to dispose of the steel, copper, etc. So around $2,000 if everything sells well and timely. All in all, for me at least, I consider it a big win, beside the amount of time it took to break down everything. I've been working for the past few months pretty extensively so I didn't really have the time to do everything as quickly as I would have liked to. If I was able to do this full-time, that would be a different story, and something that I am working towards.....I know every job has its challenges, and doing E-waste is no different in my opinion, but I love doing it and could see nothing better then running your own successful business and doing something you love. Just my .02......I would also like to again thank those of you on here who have helped so many, including myself. Here's a toast to the people on here who share their knowledge and experience/advise. Without you this site wouldn't be what it is....

Glad it paid off for you . Just in time for the holidays ! Keep up the great work

Oh that money is already gone from the shipment I delivered Metal....hahaha my girlfriend made sure of that ;), but I have started selling things on ebay again, so that should bring in some extra money. Roofing season is over so its time to focus on E-waste and other sources of income.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TheDude80

Oh that money is already gone from the shipment I delivered Metal....hahaha my girlfriend made sure of that ;), but I have started selling things on ebay again, so that should bring in some extra money. Roofing season is over so its time to focus on E-waste and other sources of income.

---

Funny how that works , it's the same over here