Where does all the scrap go? How much those scrappers making?

[huleo]

This became a hot point of discussion the other day among some large shop owners. The local scrappers do about anything to get your scrap, but where do they take it? Common sense says they are making a profit, but that profit is far from local. Trucking? Rail? Say a company is dumping they Al solids scrap for $.60/lb, where is the scrapper sending it and for how much? It seems to be a sector no one ever talks about! But with all the new buildings and vehicles at the scrapper, I would say they are OK.

It's just really intriguing how no one knows where the scrap goes!

 

[???]

Here in Sydney there are a number of mini mills that process the scrap for steel use in the construction industry. Not sure where the alu scrap goes but being much easier to reprocess I'm sure the economics stack up to transport it a fair distance. Just googled it, 95% of Australia's alu scrap is exported.

 

[memphisjed]

Scrap yards commodity metals - steel, and aluminum that got wet go to straight to mills (Nucor and Big River for steel, Alcoa for aluminum. Cans go to bell).
The very bizarre world starts with exotics. There are networks of gypsie gatherers - not the same (sometimes) as the curb scrappers- that get intel if you buy mid amounts of a particular metal. Bronze goes to the Caribbean and d1 heads to North Africa.
My friend has a scrap yard and he is terminal for broker that does d1. It is a refined infrastructure that is run mostly underground, all cash, yet has legal documentation, taxes, and fingerprints for everyone involved. He doesn’t pay the d1 gypsies, they get paid by the broker, he gets a cut for fingerprinting and holding material for 30 days (legal requirements).
Aluminum that has not gotten wet goes in the titanium storage barn. Different gypsies come and take it away.
Some people might be doing ok- the yard owners are not rolling in the money.

 

[john.k]

Gypsies as in thieves ......generally families of mid eastern origin,who source (technical word for thieving) copper and cats (car exhausts).........they buy off druggies and low lifes who steal copper from where ever its used ,including live wires ,and cats taken in broad daylight ,and export it by the container full ,seemingly without any hinderance by Australian Border Force .

 

[Limy Sami]

Dunno, but much like bookies, I've yet to see a professional scrap metal merchant on a push bike.

 

[Overland]

Dunno, but much like bookies, I've yet to see a professional scrap metal merchant on a push bike.

I can remember them with a horse and cart though !
Bob

 

[wheels17]

My son-in-law worked at a facility owned by Scepter ( http://www.scepterinc.com/ ) that collects aluminum scrap and remelts it into ingots.

"Scepter Inc.,® is a secondary aluminum recycling and trading company that has been serving customers for over thirty years. "

These are then shipped somewhere, I don't really know. Scepter has locations in:

Waverly TN(HQ)
Bicknell IN
Rye NY
Saguenay Quebec
Seneca Falls NY
Tatabanya Hungary

 

[Ries]

If you live in Utah, then your steel is probably going to the Nucor mill in Plymouth.
They process right around 1 million tons of scrap steel into bar, right there in Utah, every year. A million tons a year keeps the scrappers pretty busy.

 

[SteveEx30]

Gypsies as in thieves ......generally families of mid eastern origin,who source (technical word for thieving) copper and cats (car exhausts).........they buy off druggies and low lifes who steal copper from where ever its used ,including live wires ,and cats taken in broad daylight

The worktrucks where my wife used to work had the Cats cut off several times. They had to move to a bigger building to park them inside.

Talk about scaring the crap outta you when you fire the truck up at 5am with no exhaust lol..

The thieves were fearless .

 

[michiganbuck]

QT: (Gypsies as in thieves.)
Makes it tough for a legal guy to compete.

 

[GregSY]

A key part of the recycling world is the way scrap is transported - using fossils fuels - to places where it's OK to have all the contaminants go into the air, soil, and water. That is why you'll never see a tanker ship being torched into bite sized pieces in the USA. Since the USA's soil, air, and water is protected an operates within it's own ecosystem, we wouldn't dare allow it to be fouled. Luckily, places like Mexico, India, and many other 3rd world countries have ecosystems that are not affected by pollution - so all of the bad stuff is released there. Whew!

 

[GregSY]

Perhaps our most famous, and stupid, gypsy of all time

 

[HWooldridge]

We generate several tons of brass scrap (shavings and drops) every month, and those go back to the mill (Mueller Brass). They generally send their own rig to pick it up and we load up a full truckload at a time.

 

[Limy Sami]

I can remember them with a horse and cart though !
Bob

That was down to running costs and what is now called ''heritage''

 

[michiganbuck]

One Boy Scout troop goes around shops to pick up scrap for fund rasing.
The shop can write off the donation and some boys get to be Boy Scouts.

 

[Ox]

Perhaps our most famous, and stupid, gypsy of all time

This one is a bit easier on the eyes:

-----------------

I am Ox and I approve this post!

 

[Mcfish]

Back in the day, we machined large castings. It was not uncommon to find unmelted rebar, chunks of scrap steel etc etc.

 

[Rob F.]

Perhaps our most famous, and stupid, gypsy of all time

This is a MUCH better Van Zandt that that freak show:

 

[huleo]

To be more to the point here, we have an opportunity to obtain large and continuous amounts of scrap materials. What I am generally trying to assess is margins, resources to offload/sell the scrap, and the logistical matters of moving many hundreds of tons of scrap.

 

[fusker]

My dad used to deal with a friendly scrapper, an ex-commando soldier, back in the fifties. I have no idea how much he earned but I suspect he did allright. He paid for the stuff, mostly by telling tall stories of his exploits and his fist fights with other scrappers. One day however he met his match and was seriously beaten up. I have the impression the scrapping business is not for the faint hearted.
My previous employer and friend, a very good machinist but somewhat lacking in business sense ended up as a would-be scrapper. I could have told him he had too much sympathy with people in general for that. Before he eventually was dismissed from his danish friends and family, he managed to plunder his dad's large collection of antique tools.
He found a new wife in Thailand and he only comes back for a few days once every three months to collect his pension and keep his danish passport.
Good thing we do not live forever -

fusker