Total noob here. I may have just hit a mother load. I need help!

My question to the friend would be what was originally in the barrels and have the been tri-purged. I wouldn't want to get stuck with contaminated barrels that no scrap yard will take except for the one 250 miles away that may wind up charging for the disposal.

Originally Posted by brandon

My question to the friend would be what was originally in the barrels and have the been tri-purged. I wouldn't want to get stuck with contaminated barrels that no scrap yard will take except for the one 250 miles away that may wind up charging for the disposal.

If the barrels were intended for reuse, they would have to be purged and certified depending on what was contained in them previously.

If they are to be recycled, and they contained some type of hazardous material, then they would have to be processed in a specific way. In the refining business we talk about two types of incineration, one is obvious, the reduction of material to an ash state so values can be recovered. The second, and less known, is a purification process. The barrels would first be shredded and the resulting material incinerated, brought to a temperature below it's melting point but high enough to burn off whatever the containment was, the resulting gases would go through a wet and dry fume scrubbing process which would remove and neutralize the confinements. Here is an example of what I use to scrub my exhaust, it's a catalytic converter that scrubs the exhaust fumes of everything from cyanide to NOx gases.



Also, this material would be best sold directly to an industrial processor rather than a scrap yard. Scrap yards are really just an intermediary, a middle man if you will, and would not be equipped as a scrap yard, to process the material. This type of material should be represented by someone that understands not only how it should be processed, but also how it should be negotiated. I have a hard time believing that any processor, foundry, scrap yard would accept the material without the proper information and/or permits, releases or whatever other information was required to comply with Federal and State EPA regulations.

Whatever was contained in the barrels, selling to the proper entity would be the only way to properly conduct any transaction.

Scott