Motherload of lead acid batteries!!!

[BGRManley87]

I have been waiting to tell this story because it was definitley by far our best battery purchasing day. We started buying batteries about 6 months ago and since then we have recycled about 11 tons of material. Thats a lot of weight to move by hand. Anyways we got a tip from a local guy in the area on a place that had over a hundred of them so we were anxious to make the deal. He had other recyclers interested in his stuff but the guy who referred us is his good friend so thats why it even happened. When me and my wife got up there we met the guy and boy howdy was he a talker. Older fire chief second longest in Cali i believe soo millions of stories. So i had to put in my time listening and after a while i got a little ancy (understandibly so). Finally we start walking around and found this pile of batteries piled on top of each other on this trailer. At first it didnt seem like that much to me but after we loaded all of them up it ended up being over 100. 60 somethin car 20 somethin big boys like for tractor or solar and a variety of others. We ended up shelling out about $500 cash for the load and he was very satisfied as were we. On the way down the coast we stopped at a couple farms and ended up with almost 20 more. It was pretty obvious that we had quite the load in my rig every bump bottomed it out but in all the excitement i didnt consider putting to much weight in.

Then we made our way down the coast very slowly took over two hours to get to the sellers location and boy were we happy to finally make it! Before when i had dealt with this company they paid per battery and i was happy with prices. From my calculation i thought we had about over $1500 comin our way. But Then the guy workin there said we can pay you by weight. At first i was skeptical but then after weighing he showed me the difference. The total payout for that one trip was over $2800!!! We prop spent about $800 between fuel and buying material. So we cleared in one day $2000! That was a pretty exciting day for us newly in the scrap scene. I hope this helps some out there starting out because this type of material is relativly easy to get without paying into it because lets face it nobody wants to deal with a battery. Its heavy with acid everywhere and its hazardous. Use that to convince them to give it up cheap or free. I would love to hear a similar story if anyone had one. Thanks for reading and i hope you enjoyed.

[Jonniebrass]

Nice day I do agree.

[southendguy]

That's a nice score! One of my favorite things to do, finding a big ole' pile of batteries.

[Bear]

where tha hek is gualala ?

[southendguy]

"Welcome to Gualala, CA"

[sledge]

Well that makes my recent haul look puny. Last week I scored 8 car batteries off a guy for $5/per and cored them a few hours later for $90.. I thought it was a magical day.. Just need to do this 20 more times and I'd be even with BGR's load! Nice Score!!

[MattInTheHat]

one time i bought a pile of about 75 motorcycle batteries for 125 and flipped them for a $100 profit in an afternoon. best part is i needed to be in the area anyway.

Nothing like your score, but not bad for a jeep cherokee full of computer parts lol.

[happyscraper]

Thats a nice payday but a word of warning. I read some where that if you are hauling over a certain amount of batteries you need hazmat permits, the fines can be pretty steep.

[Recytal]

"Persons who generate, transport, regenerate,
collect, and store spent lead-acid batteries prior
to reclamation, but do not perform the actual
reclamation, are not subject to hazardous waste
regulation. EPA established those provisions to
encourage the recycling of these batteries. However,
owners and operators of facilities that store spent
batteries before reclamation, other than spent
batteries that are regenerated (processed to remove
contaminants and restore the product to a useable
condition), are subject to regulation in a manner
similar to hazardous waste treatment, storage, and
disposal facilities (TSDFs). Handlers of lead-acid
batteries may also choose to manage them under the
universal waste provisions"

Source : http://www.epa.gov/osw/inforesources...ntat/rom32.pdf

[ROKrecycling]

That is indeed a great haul. One of my suppliers told me last week that the previous load of 600 pounds of li-ion laptop batteries that he sold to me at $2 a pound he had bought at 20 cents per pound. While most people tell me that pay about $1 and bring me smaller loads, I really liked his story because it was his first shot at buying laptop batteries. Needless to say, he is hooked. He told me he was visiting a local computer store that always tells him that someone else gets their stuff. He saw the pile of batteries and happened to ask about them. They said that the other people haul them out when they buy the other stuff. That is why he got them for 20 cents. They were happy to get 20 cents.