Originally Posted by
btkr
Check with your local yards to see if they will accept them. Around here, they will not accept any of them AT ALL, no matter how many holes they have in them. Something about the residue left inside that is potentially flammable and/or dangerous, so I was told. There is usually a pile or bin next to shred pile that they get tossed in, so they are definitely removed from the process. I never asked how they dispose of them.
Can anyone else shed some light on this?
As Breakage stated, there is a huge liability with closed pressurized containers and many companies will not accept the liability for the limited profit. The other concern is the states regulations on there disposal. There are two situations I am aware of (and probably many more) where propane tanks were thrown into cars and when the cars were crushed the propane tanks exploded and destroyed millions of dollars of equipment. My yard accepts them from me because of my system, but they do not accept them from everyone. As far as a second pile and what they do with them, there are companies that specialize in them on the secondary market they are selling them to. The scrap yard has to find storage for them until they have enough for a gondola or semi tractor trailer. You will find that at times they will accept them and other times they will not. If you separate them from the rest of the metal and can haul at least four tons, they will always accept them.
The rest of the story: The manager of the yard comes to my place to hunt and sight in his guns. In my previous post it was pointed out that I use them for target practice. We have one person up river throwing the containers into the water and another down river supervising the soccer net we use to catch the containers. We have never had a container sink and the water removes any residue or fumes. I learned how to shoot back in the 1960's shooting light bulbs floating down the river starting with a BB gun, working up to a .22 and finally our hunting rifles. When this was not a challenge my dad started throwing Christmas lights into the river and we had to shoot the last bulb first and work our way forward (this is a common strategy for hunting turkeys because the ones in the lead do not see the others fall.) I did not use light bulbs to teach my sons to shoot because of the environmental effect, but this was not a concern in the 1960's. My sons learned to shoot using scrap and learned to hit a target with a bow (bare) through a rolling tire. Now you know how I came up with the strategy for taking care of pressurized containers. We have a special area for condensers because of the oil. One of our favorite games is Tic Tac Toe where we spray paint the board on the container and everyone uses a different caliber without a scope.
The reason for this post is to encourage members to think for themselves, be creative, and live for the day. I just lost my father and was reminiscing about all that he taught me and this became the other reason for the post. I am not sure the exact saying but it goes something like this: I could not believe how dumb my dad was when I was a teenager or how much he had learned by the time I was forty.
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