Not Paying - Page 2

HT1 I see you are in florida, where abouts are you? im in vero beach and I completely agree with you. steel is going to drop around florida to about 1.50 a hundred, or so but im thinking after about a year it will settle back to a safe zone of 3.75-4.00 a hundred.

ive noticed in my area, that all the scrappers (who are part timers or curb siders) talk a bunch of crap about the low prices. now these low prices hurt me too but with no offense to the curb side guys, this is my main source of income. when I see something on the side of the road, I leave it because they need it and I have contracts that pay my bills so I don't want to be greedy and hurt their income. but lately they have been leaving the stuff on the curb and ive been asking myself when im going to start throwing them on my trailer lol - I need it more than waste management does...

but to get back on topic, I think what happened is we all got spoiled. myself included. the prices went high and so did fuel... fuel is down and metal is too - its been following this pattern for years. but when we got 10 dollars a hundred on steel and 3 dollars a pound for copper, we were kings and everyone and their grandmothers because "super scrappers" and that's what we got used to for a year or so. now that the prices are back to where they were 2 years ago we say metal is low and not worth an ish... well when I first started the prices were lower than they are today (all but steel)

we just have to keep our heads up and buy more material to be where we were in the prime. which is becoming easier for me because of the low prices, my contractors are calling me back because they have learned they don't make the same money doing it theirselves any more

Looks like we are at the bottom here in UK, light iron £20, oversize shred £40
never seen these prices since 2008,

About 15 years ago had a scrap yard give me an IOU for a load I had already unloaded. I had noticed some kind of a flight simulator from Boeing in the yard that was had some type of computer full of vacuum tubes taking up the entire nose.

Instead of accepting the IOU I exchanged it for all the tubes and came out with four pails, tuned out these tubes were high end amplifier tubes all of which I sold on ebay. If memory serves me those vacuum tubes sold for $19.99 each they all had gold pins.

The yard did not have money issues they paid by check and did not want to cover the cost of writing a check for a load worth less than $10.00. Had I been a regular customer of this yard making a return trip with more loads the IOU would not have been a problem with me. My load was a small one and I used this yard only because it was the closest to my home.

You just never know how your luck will take a turn for the better.

Originally Posted by BurlyGuys

I am currently not bothering with shred steel in my junk removal business. It goes right to the landfill with my regular trash unless I have a truck full of it.

This is a sad an scary quote ...

I was just browsing Scrap Monster. I wonder why is it ... they have prices for four regions of the U.S. ... Why is it that the Midwest states aren't paying for steel when prices are exactly the same for all four regions of the U.S.?

Is it a matter of overhead? Or shipping costs for the yards?

I'm happy that the yard near me is still paying $67/ton. Still doesn't seem to provide a whole lot of motivation to haul it in, but I do feel lucky.