Looking for tips and advice

Hello everyone!
I am somewhat new to scrapping and I have just been doing copper transformers and some power cables.
My questions here are, what are good things to scrap and are their certain items that I should look for?
I work in IT and we have bins full of old garbage printers, computers, phones and other items. Would any of those items be something I should be looking at? I normally always scrap the backup UPS we throw out because of the large transformers inside them.
I previously did keyboards because of the mylar inside, but that was a ton of work for very little pay out.

Any advice for a newbie is appreciated!

Thanks

Computers, servers and motherboards are sure bets. Home / small business printers and peripherals are mostly plastic, low metal contents and messy (dirty hands). Cables are cell phones have their value. If you want to sort printed circuit boards, some have decent value (especially if you ship them to the right buyers), but most are disappointing. CRT monitors have copper, but clean disposal of the glass and their plastic case is not easy.

If you work in IT and have access to old equipment, you should be able to do very well!

Desktops and servers are well worth scrapping, quite a bit of value in them (motherboards, cards, RAM, CPU, heat sinks, hard drives, etc)
Laptops are worth collecting too, best to sell them whole to a reputable ewaste buyer. Newer ones may also have resale value.
Wires and cables are easy, sell to local scrap yard.
The lead acid batteries in the UPS also have value, besides the copper transformers which you already scrap.
Routers, switches, and other network gear also have good boards in them, and usually easy to tear down.
Loose parts such as hard drives, memory, etc are also worth collecting.
Printers, monitors, keyboards and the like are mostly a waste of time to collect and tear down.
There are several good reputable buyers on this forum, they usually post their prices for the various boards and other ewaste materials to give you a better idea. There are others out there as well. Local scrap yards are usually not the right place to sell boards and other higher grade ewaste to, as they usually will not buy or pay a lot less.
If you ship to a buyer, much cheaper to send at least a full pallet of material.

There is a lot of good information on the old threads on here.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ToxicGhost

Hello everyone!
I am somewhat new to scrapping and I have just been doing copper transformers and some power cables.
My questions here are, what are good things to scrap and are their certain items that I should look for?
I work in IT and we have bins full of old garbage printers, computers, phones and other items. Would any of those items be something I should be looking at? I normally always scrap the backup UPS we throw out because of the large transformers inside them.
I previously did keyboards because of the mylar inside, but that was a ton of work for very little pay out.

Any advice for a newbie is appreciated!

Thanks

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I am also located in PA and do e-waste scrapping primarily.

My most profitable item category is semi-current laptops, that sell on ebay anywhere from $50 - $500+ depending on age, model, condition, specs, etc
Other than that, all electronics have good scrap value. Lots have more than scrap value, reusable parts that are worth selling as is rather than scrapping.

But it all has value scrapping.

Printers and Monitors are the only things that really dont have much value and aren't worth dealing with. I get plenty just because I take them as a courtesy with other stuff. The printers go into my shred pile, and the monitors all go to be recycled at the landfill where they take 5 per trip for free or staples where they also take around 5 per trip for free, or I have a guy that will take some for free, some times for export.

Feel free to ask any questions, or use the search bar as they likely already have been asked.