How many of you recycle?

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Hanr3

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I tend to recycle metal I collect from various projects. Mostly auto work.

Made a trip to the recycler today.
2- 4.3L v6 engines, well 1 and a 1/2. Teh second was only the block.
1 Dodge Ram rear axle,
1- hot water tank,
1- 40 year old stove,
about 2 dozen sets of rotors,
3 garbage bags full of crushed aluiminum cans,
1- aluminum riding mower engine,
Some copper pipe and electrical wiring from my basement remodel project.

Walked out with $190 in cash.
It just paid for my trip to the first annual Tin Boats Tournament in 2 weeks. :mrgreen:

The aluminum alone was $99.
 
I take a load about that size to the scrap yard about once or twice a year. My mother in law and brother in law both keep their cans but dont want to bother taking them there so I end up getting all of them. I deffinately make my gas money for the trip and then some. :)
 
Took an 80 gallon water heater and one of our shop steel scrap bins (20 gallon barrel that steel offcuts, old nails/screws, virtually any steel scrap is tossed in).

30 bucks. Won't be too long before the aluminum barrel is full. When full, it usually weighs about 50 pounds, so that is a pretty good chunk by itself, and when it comes to aluminum, I will keep most every little scrap, so what goes in there is the smallest of the small offcuts. Most of it is from customer jobs anyway, so I wasn't the one originally paying for it. Helps cover other shop expenses.
 
bassboy1 said:
Took an 80 gallon water heater and one of our shop steel scrap bins (20 gallon barrel that steel offcuts, old nails/screws, virtually any steel scrap is tossed in).

30 bucks. Won't be too long before the aluminum barrel is full. When full, it usually weighs about 50 pounds, so that is a pretty good chunk by itself, and when it comes to aluminum, I will keep most every little scrap, so what goes in there is the smallest of the small offcuts. Most of it is from customer jobs anyway, so I wasn't the one originally paying for it. Helps cover other shop expenses.

BB, this is off-topic but I used to charge a small % to the cost of projects as a shop fee to pay for all those screws, rivets etc that are too small or too few to charge back to the customer. Glue, welding rod, sandpaper, it all adds up and nowadays everything is expensive. Not charging for that stuff means you're hourly or profit is just that much less.
 
My wife doesn't like the taste of our well water, so we get the 2.5 gal jugs of "spring water" at the grocery, also empty plastic milk jugs, drop them all every 2nd and 4th Thursday roadside. Somebody takes 'em away before I come home from work
 
I cleaned out Dad's stuff so Mom could sell the house, I had 270# of 316 Stainless Nuts & bolts @ $0.90/lb along w/ a bunch of mixed steel, brass & copper. I made mom close to a Grand in 5 - 6 trips to the scrapyard. (2) old welder leads, w/ the insulation still intact came to $35.00 and would have been about a $1.00 more per pound if I had stripped the insulation off...

Saw a ton of people bringing in their alum cans...
 
At my workplace I have a scrap pile where I accumulate different types of metals. I have a drum for brass, one for aluminum and a pile of scrap metal. After I have enough stockpiled we will sell it have a party at work. As for recycling, I also have drums for used oil. When they get close to being full we call a utility co. here in SC and they come get it to use in their power plant. We do not receive money for that but it does not cost us to get rid of it. They pick it up for free. I work at an airport fuel farm and we also have an oil/water separator that separates the fuel spilled while loading and unloading trucks on the loading/unloading racks. The utility company picks that fuel up also.
 
bobberboy said:
bassboy1 said:
Took an 80 gallon water heater and one of our shop steel scrap bins (20 gallon barrel that steel offcuts, old nails/screws, virtually any steel scrap is tossed in).

30 bucks. Won't be too long before the aluminum barrel is full. When full, it usually weighs about 50 pounds, so that is a pretty good chunk by itself, and when it comes to aluminum, I will keep most every little scrap, so what goes in there is the smallest of the small offcuts. Most of it is from customer jobs anyway, so I wasn't the one originally paying for it. Helps cover other shop expenses.

BB, this is off-topic but I used to charge a small % to the cost of projects as a shop fee to pay for all those screws, rivets etc that are too small or too few to charge back to the customer. Glue, welding rod, sandpaper, it all adds up and nowadays everything is expensive. Not charging for that stuff means you're hourly or profit is just that much less.

Most welding expenses (filler metal, sandpaper, tungstens, electricity etc.) are calculated into my labor rates. On certain jobs (generally the entire boat build jobs, as much of my other work consists of the aluminum fabrication/repair only, and uses no other random parts), I do have a small percentage, to cover things like zip ties, the odd smaller electrical connector here or there, etc. Scrap metal covers shop expenses for my own personal projects, as those make me no money.
 
Aluminum cans are $.56 a pound right now, clean aluminum is considerable higher. Clean being no other metals mized in.
 
kpetrich said:
I take a load about that size to the scrap yard about once or twice a year. My mother in law and brother in law both keep their cans but dont want to bother taking them there so I end up getting all of them. I deffinately make my gas money for the trip and then some. :)

I make about 2 trips a year myself. I take all kinds of metal. I don't actively look for it but if I see an old washer, dryer, refrigerator or some metal on the side of the road, I'll stop and ask if I can get it. Most folks will let me get it.
 
My city has a "Spring Clean-up" and "Fall Clean-up" every year. Teh city comes by with a front end loader and a dump truck. They collect everything except construction debris. Never fails teh guys in pick-ups crusie up and down the street collecting every piece of metal tehy can find. Now I know why. :mrgreen:
 
I'm an avid recycler, but as an environmental biologist, it kinda comes with the territory.

My son and I did a little project once; tracking our family's trash and recycle production (the mass of each that we produce per week, averaged over the course of a few months), and we learned that we recycle about 2.5-3 times more stuff than we actually throw away (compost materials were not counted, as we feed scraps/leftovers to the dogs, and compost what they can't/shouldn't eat).

As far as bulk metals go, we recycle aluminum. I'm a bottle beer drinker, not cans, and no one on my house drinks soda regularly, so it takes us quite a while to fill up a 33gal bin with the occasional soda indulgence or PBR slum I fall into. When the weather's nice here in [strike]Hell[/strike], um...I mean Arizona, my boy and I usually take a bike ride or two a day 'round the neighborhood. We both pick up cans we see in the street or at the park and tote them home to add to our bin. We're not like the old timers you see on their adult tricycles with long sticks digging cans out of the trash, but my wife jokes that some day I'll be that guy. It's a nice way to keep our neighborhood clean, make a spot of extra cash, and continue to teach the little one that keeping the environment clean is good for everyone. As we both find the cans, and crush them together when we have time, he and I split the cash when we recycle them (about $15-$20 a year). I haven't seen aluminum below $0.50/lb here for years, and the newspaper usually has a coupon for $0.70-$0.75/lb if you take the time to look.

Anyway, glad to hear that my fellow boaters are helping the Earth be a cleaner and better place for those who really matter; future generations.
 
Apparently recycling has also become popular with the meth-making crowd. I'm all for going green and recycling but I draw the line at this.

https://www.knoxnews.com/news/2009/apr/03/pee-lab-flushed-anderson-county/
 
A guy that I work with took an old school bus in and got about $1100 after taking out the batteries and subtracting for the tires. I remember when he bought the bus for $145
 

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