Hard Rubbish Scrapping

[WEEE Ben]

It's been on in Melbourne for a month now and I decided to go take a look and ended up doing a few trips.
There was a difference to say a couple years ago, obviously a lot less CRT's but the one's that were put out were mostly scrapped out, scrappers are onto them as it's really the only main source of copper.
Funny thing was microwaves being partially scrapped out, just the transformer taken, Most I saw were scrapped like that.

[WEEE Ben]

Even though steel has gone up to 10c kg from 4c kg last year, not many are taking it so I ended up doing a 2 pickup challenge to see how much worth of scrap steel I could pick up whilst searching for e-waste..

[WEEE Ben]

Ended up with $188 in scrap metal plus a few better than scrap items..

[CuBowerBird]

Would love to come for a drive with you one time if ever you feel like some company Ben. I watched that video enthralled the whole time utterly excited, love going hard rubbish diving!!!

[WEEE Ben]

I'm going out this weekend as that area where I thought was strange because of little scrap was actually the wrong area that's not being picked up for another week, so it's still kinda early but i'll be able to catch stuff put out early in the next area too.

I'm doing just e-waste, grills & non-ferrous picking this time, so an early start and a longer run but i'm going to be scrapping out some tv's and avoiding scrap steel unless it's bars or something I can use.
Although scrap steel has gone up this week, 12c kg which is good, hopefully it hit's 15c kg by x-mas.

Next weekend might be a good time for that area if you wanted to do it, I'll probably only do one run next week so either day is ok.

[Cliffy]

Been following you through your Melbourne scrapping adventures there Ben, and enjoying every minute of it. Kerbside collections in Perth are moving steadily closer to my area week by week. Had a great run today and was surprised by what I found considering that the area I hit was not due to be collected for another week. Obviously the week end being the time most people put out the goods before the monday start of the collection. Fans, Vcr's, Dvd's a few CRT's and heaps of pvc cables. I even got to scrap out a massive rear projection tv, for the first time! The old shelves are well stocked.

[WEEE Ben]

Yeah it's strange isn't it? I'm finding the same here with areas scheduled for next week or the week after already putting stuff out.
It's good because most scrappers would be in the heavy areas so you get first pick of the piles.

Cables are something I focus on a lot from hard rubbish, you know those plastic bags people put out full of assorted plugs and chargers they accumulate?
All that I go through and keep a lot of it, especially brand name power adaptors like from laptops, mobile phones and especially anything gaming.
The grey vintage pc cables and mice are another good one to keep because people use them to match up with vintage electronics.
and vintage peripherals like old phone's, floppy discs, cassette tapes, fax machines are also good to keep, oh, and anything old IBM or Mac.

[WEEE Ben]

Hard rubbish is just about over for the year in Melbourne, I tried a new area much further away but scrappers seem to have the area covered well.

Local scrappers have a definite advantage to be able to time their run and catch early piles and this area was picked very well indeed.

But there were definite signs there's a few travelling scrappers who have signature moves like scrapping out microwaves just for the main transformer, something I never saw before this year.
And there's a computer scrapper who opens every pc and removes the ram & hard drives, obviously a pc repairer who has no need for motherboards or anything scrap.

It's been interesting and fun anyway.

[Tybo]

I noticed the old 'one side pried open on the microwave' this year too, with only the transformer gone. Although the value was significantly reduced I still finished the job on several, grabbing the fan motor, turntable motor, the small transformer on the board and any of the PVC wire I can snip. Certainly takes the shine off it though, when that heavy chunk of transformer is gone though.

[WEEE Ben]

Still lot's of CRT TV's about, This scrap run was looking lean so I ended up scrapping out a bunch of crt's to boost up the value a bit.
I'm accumulating as much easy copper I can get whilst it's still around.