Scrap Metal:

These materials are the leftovers of the useful products while their making process. These scraps can be metallic and non-metallic that are attained from different sources such as from vehicle manufacturing and building surplus materials. Scrap is important because it can be recycled and helpful in other useful purposes.

Benefits of recycling scrap metal: (1)

It’s a huge earning opportunity for everyone to collect scrap and go through its recycling procedure to make useful products again. Many people are already doing this and earning a lot of profit. Scrap metal recycling is also a very environment-friendly process by which natural resources can be saved from being wasted or degraded. Some useful scrap metal recycling benefits are as follows:

  • Save Energy: it is a less costly and time-saving process to recycle the already existing metal rather than spending on its harvesting from new resources. A lot of energy and resources are required to discover the new metal first and then modify it in the industry to make it useful. Scrap metal on the other hand just requires collection and differentiation of each scrap metal such as copper, steel, iron, etc. After this step, the scrap is ready to convert again into useful products such as copper wires, Aluminum Cans, and Nut Bolts, etc. In recycling, one ton of scrap you can save up on energy that is consumed during 4 months in the daily operations of four homes.
  • Conserve Natural resources: the recycling process saves many useful natural metals from being degraded by nature. A lot of resources are required to extract the natural metal and to process it for making it a useful product, therefore recycling scrap is the better way to save natural resources such as the input of material like fuel expense, labor, and water. The mining also disturbs the wildlife because most of the companies during preparation do processes that disturb the natural habitat, plus extracting a new product to refine it for the consumers is much expensive.
  • Slow Landfill growth: heavy metals have a long period of degradation and landfill space is not enough to store these metals for so long. Therefore, landfill spaces of recycling remain clear from the waste and scrap metals. The motive of cleaning the environment through ‘REDUCE, REUSE AND RECYCLE” is helpful to slow the landfill rate and maximize scrap metal recycling and convert it into useful products at a cheap price.
  • Economic Benefits: the recycling of scrap metal is an emerging economical business and estimated that it generates about $13 billion in tax revenue every year and creates almost 500,000 jobs in the scrap industry. In balancing the trades of the United States, this industry plays a vital role in earning a lot of profit by exporting recycle scrap metals.

Prices of scrap Metals:

The prices of scrap material of different metals are as follows:

Copper and brass scrap materials:

  • Bare Bright Wire price is $3.80 per pound
  • The price of Copper Tubing is $3.50/lb.
  • Roofing copper available at $3.10/lb.
  • Brass Shells are available at $1.67/lb.
  • Clean Brass radiators’ price is $1.75/lb.

Aluminum:

  • The price of an Aluminum siding/Gutters is $0.55/lb.
  • Clean Aluminum Wire available from $0.70/lb.
  • Dirty Aluminum available in $0.04-$0.08/lb.

Steel and iron:

  • Steel at $0.063 to $0.10/lb.
  • Light Iron is available from $0.063/lb.
  • Cast Iron price range between $0.102-$0.128/lb.

Rare earth metals:

  • Nickel price is $1.75 to $4.50/lb. depending upon the quality of metal.
  • Tin Solder available at $1.00-$5.50/lb.
  • Titanium price is $0.25/lb.

Classification of Scrap Metals:

There are two main classifications of scrap metals:

  1. Ferrous
  2. Non-ferrous

Ferrous metals:

The strong and hard metals that have iron in them and cannot be easily met and recycled are known as ferrous metals. These metals include carbon steel, wrought iron, stainless steel, and engineering steel. The ferrous metal is generally used in railroads, cars, and heavy industries.

Non-ferrous Scrap:

These are the scrap particles that are iron-free in their composition and are non-attractive to the magnet. Some of the major non-ferrous metals are Aluminum, brass, copper, gold nickel tin, zinc, and silver. These are very useful and handy metals due to their lightweight and mostly used in aircraft, roofing services, and electrical wirings.

Where to take the scrap material: (2)

If you want to start the business of purchasing and selling the scrap then you should consider these industries from where you can easily collect the scrap at the cheapest rate and then take it to the recyclers of scrap for refining. Although scrap recycling is doing great in the U.S. export market, still there is a huge gap in collecting scrap materials and making them useful. Some of the certain locations from where the scraps are easily available:

Construction and Renovation sites: To collect the material from these construction sites, the first thing to remember is that, you have to do a contract with the construction site owner or have a written permission letter otherwise you can be considered as a scrap theft. If you want to get successful in collecting the best raw material, you should have to build a strong connection with plumbers, repair technicians, and electricians.

Shooting Ranges: if there is a shooting range near you either public or private, it will give you a good opportunity to collect brass shells from there and sell them to the nearest recycling unit. For the maximum collection, you should first contact the local range and ask him about the time of collecting the shells from the range.

Hospitals assisted living centers and clinics: These are the best places where you can easily collect almost all types of scrap materials e.g. broken beds, wheelchairs, appliances. To avail of the opportunity, the best way is to make a deal with the site’s administrators and make a contract with them to remove this waste from their site free of cost.

Farms and Ranches: If you are from a rural area and want to start a scrap business, the best option near you is to look for farms and ranches. Many farms have a specific backyard area specifically oriented for the scrap materials such as old rusted cars and machinery. So by contacting your nearer farmer you can avail this opportunity for scrap collection as well.

References:

  1. https://www.fairsalvage.com/4-advantages-of-recycling-metals.html
  2. https://www.thebalancesmb.com/places-to-find-scrap-metal-2877935