What's up new guy...

I, too, am relatively new to this whole thing but I am learning a lot and really fast.

My adventure started when I saw a cast iron sink on the curb on my way home from work and decided to bring it to a scrap yard I heard about on the radio. I had no clue how this stuff worked but I figured what the hell. With $22 in my pocket after the dropoff, I realized that there could be some decent money in this! The wheels started turning and I realized how much metal junk I would see on trash night in the "student ghetto" of a college town. It was go time.

I live in an apartment with my girlfriend and her daughter. I have no garage and the downstairs neighbors totally bogart the shed (even though it's supposed to be shared) so I don't have space to break stuff down and separate "good" steel from the other stuff. I pick up appliances, car wheels, random metallic junk, etc. either by appointment or whatever I find on garbage night and it's much more efficient for me to just take it all in as shred (the yard I go to calls it "tin load") but I get 0.12 a pound ($241 a gross ton) for it so it's really not bad. When I eventually buy a house, it **** well is going to have a garage where I can break stuff down and sort it. I have a small box by our stoop that I throw in what's obviously brass or copper but I'm not too stingy about it. I also cut the power cords off of the appliances I take in. When I have a big enough pile of copper wire, I'll bring that.

TL;DR, No need to break stuff down if you don't have the time or desire to do it. Weigh in, drop load in shred (tin) pile, weigh out, get paid. Easy enough!