Scrap steel price? a give a way?

[chad883]

I just called and got a price of $5/ton for MST. Beginning of 2019 it was $110/ton.

 

[Richard Winn]

normally i do a lot of seat repair on shears havnt done any this year

the yards that i do this for have all pulled the shears off and put on sticks and

buckets to unload drilling rig parts

get a bucket cylinder repair several times a week now

they are buying heavy melt unprepared for less than .01 and a line of trucks waiting

to unload

not spending anything on prep,loading out or even running their shredders

refusing shread and cars

 

[Ferroequinologis]

I just took a load to the local yard yesterday, now owned by a CMC steel plant I used to work for in town. They decided to start running the operation from the beginning to the end and bought the local scrap yard. It was an old military truck frame, rusted out from sitting by the ocean. I cut it up into 5x2 for heavy melt, thinking I'd get a better price. I got there and Jeff unloaded it with a magnet. Way easier than me loading it! The yard was pretty empty. Put it in the shread pile. I asked him about it, and he said he was hooking me up. Scaled out at 4280lbs. Got $193. They were paying more for shread then heavy melt- $.045 a pound. Heavy Melt was $.02 a pound. The cashier said the mill was desperate for scrap. People had stopped coming after the first few weeks of the lockdown. That's why they were still willing to pay high.

They won't resell to anyone from that yard. When I worked for the mill, I would volunteer for the holiday fire watches, and drive around digging through the scrap piles. They would sell it to me for the same price they paid- I wrote a ton of checks for less than $5 that year... lol.

Another local mom and pop (or in this case dad and daughters) shop I took my copper wire to. They always hook me up and we are on a first name basis. I bought a running cummins engine from them once for $200. They paid $1.40 per pound for the low grade copper wire. I gave her a description and my number, and they are going to hunt around for a 3ph motor 15hp to 20hp for my phase converter build. They have another yard a couple miles from my place. It isn't open to the public, but it is where they disassemble machines they get in. Said they'd charge me $.15 a pound for the motor. They were paying only $.02 a pound for shred. They aren't really set up for steel, especially the heavy stuff I usually do.

So it is still ok around here. Definitely lower than in years past however.

 

[Guest]

I throw all my steel, aluminum in the trash can.

Hording cheep commodities is a fools game.

Some people like to try to keep things out of the landfill.

 

[Fish On]

I throw all my steel, aluminum in the trash can.

Hording cheep commodities is a fools game.

I haul my own trash to the dump.

I haul my own scrap to the scrapyard.

No matter where it goes, I'm doing the hauling, and the dump and scrapyard are roughly the same distance from the shop.

The only additional effort is that I have to put my trash in a separate container from my aluminum drops, and spend a few minutes waiting on the scale guy to write up a ticket. By the time my drums are full, it's usually about 700 lbs of clean aluminum sheet or extrusion drops (I'm in fabrication, not machining), so it's worth the time.

I will take steel to the dump - I work with aluminum 100%, so I generate next to no steel - I'd have to hoard it for 5 years to get enough for the scale to register. I'll take that to the dump on a trash run, but dump it in the bin they have for metals, so it at least gets recycled instead of buried in the landfill. I do that with my cardboard, too.

 

[pavt]

I throw all my steel, aluminum in the trash can.

Hording cheep commodities is a fools game.

You should tell that to Goldman Sachs. They got busted for hoarding to jack up the prices back in 2008, made a few hundred million a year off it. Nobody noticed until Boeing tried to buy a shitload of aluminum and said "wtf?"

 

[Phil in Montana]

New steel is .70 to 1.00 lb, scrap is less than a .01 lb... when scrap was .20/ lb new steel was .60 / lb I smell a big stinking rat....Phil

 

[swatkins]

Well, I'm still not seeing any scrap piles under satelite either.
Like I said - I never seen any scrap trucks, but they could rail it in, but I don't see anything that looks like scrap piles along the rail either.

???

Google Maps


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

I see lots of scrap piles just to the left of the large black ore piles.. Line of empty rail cars there in the middle of the piles.. Rusty looking piles
to the right of what looks to be dregs of the pot dumps and the large plates and pipe....

Google Maps

 

[Guest]

Wasn't too long ago that steel would get 200 a ton around here. At that time, the local meth heads went and stole about 4 blocks worth of sewer lids, a few blocks over from me. Scrappers got smart and started requiring photo ID's. Guy right down the street up and went to jail coz he made 20k scrapping on the side while getting a welfare check.

When I last hauled drops to the scrap yard in California 10 years ago, they not only required I.D. and vehicle license number they took your picture standing next to your scrap pile.

 

[Richard Winn]

New steel is .70 to 1.00 lb, scrap is less than a .01 lb... when scrap was .20/ lb new steel was .60 / lb I smell a big stinking rat....Phil

if you really want in on that action send me a letter of credit and a po.at.02

how close are you to pacific hide and fur?

 

[Bob-J-H]

When I last hauled drops to the scrap yard in California 10 years ago, they not only required I.D. and vehicle license number they took your picture standing next to your scrap pile.

I had a friend with a small scrap yard. He even had to get a thumb print. The customer may have only $1.00 worth of tin cans. Around here they won't let you buy anything from the scrapyard.

 

[Fancuku]

It's usually not too hard to find a half decent guy to haul it off for you whose family will benefit from the small sum of money,

A guy off the street can do something much easier than hauling off 2000 lbs of steel to only get $60. You're living in fantasy land.

 

[Ox]

Around here they won't let you buy anything from the scrapyard.

Can anyone explain this to me?

Also who "they" is?



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Think Snow Eh
Ox

 

[jbacc]

Can anyone explain this to me?

Also who "they" is?



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Think Snow Eh
Ox

The Scrapyards......We live in such a litigious world that most won't let you pick through their yard for fear you may get injured and sue them.

 

[Glug]

Can anyone explain this to me?

Also who "they" is?

Yeah, I have wondered. Some guesses, it could be zoning, insurance, contract.

Insurance ... it is one thing to have a policy for accepting the stuff. But if someone buys a 20' length of something, and then it flies off the top of their yugo, the yard gets sued.

When a scrap/recycle yard is approved, the "use permit" may not have included sales. It could be an "allowed use" in the zoning district, but if it was not part of the application and approval, then they often can't just start doing it. Sometimes the zoning has changed since the yard was built, and the yard only continues because it is grandfathered. If they added sales, that unapproved use could cause them to lose their permit entirely or a large fine.

I have wondered if there are contracts where their buyer has negotiated for exclusive rights to all of a certain type of scrap, and not just what is left after someone has cherry picked it.

 

[Bob-J-H]

The Scrapyards......We live in such a litigious world that most won't let you pick through their yard for fear you may get injured and sue them.

That explained it. If you start to look through stuff, the scrap yard runs you off. In the old days,the yard paid 2 cents a pound for steel,and you could buy anything you wanted for 10 cents a pound. But no more.