Possible new Mac source, and running my own recycling drive?

[Mike Richardson]

I bought three Apple toners for $10 each off eBay with free local pickup. It's a good sized recycling place about a mile away from my mom's house. They had Beige G3 towers with lots of cards sitting right there, the guy wanted $30 each though. I saw a blue and white G3, a blue monitor, and a few other random bits. They are supposed to e-mail me with a list of stuff they have. It doesn't seem like a place where I can dig through stuff like the bastard recycler's place, this place has stuff stacked really high on pallets and the like, lots of mixed PCs and Macs. It might be a good source for some stuff assuming they actually e-mail me back.

I just have to be careful and establish that I will not be paying any rape prices. I ruined the chance of any more old PowerBooks at the bastard's place because I paid too much for the initial ones. $30 might be OK for a good condition/specs blue and white G3 because I can sell it for $49 in the store, but not a beige one that I have to sell for $39, $34 or even less.

I wonder how profitable a computer recycling outfit is. I've thought about renting a truck and holding a computer recycling drive like a lot of other places do, then taking out all the nice stuff (Apples, rare stuff, Pentium 4 or newer, etc.), and finding some other recycler who will take the rest for free. As long as I can load the rest of the stuff off for free somewhere, my only overhead is the $100 or so to rent the truck. I can also raid all the PC towers for memory that works in Macs, and any other Mac compatible parts.

 

[MrMacPlus]

Gah, I wish the recycling places around here weren't so selfish.

 

[Unknown_K]

Most recycling places get flooded with CRT monitors, don't think you want to get stuck with those starting a recycling drive.

I could be wrong but recyclers get paid by businesses to take the stuff away, and get paid by others for the recycled parts. There is some value to the machines as scrap, you need to figure out what that is and then slightly overbid on pallate sized loads or nobody will want to bother with you.

You need to figure out a value added service like taking in dead LCD monitors fixing them and then reselling them. Most just need a few capacitors and maybe a transister or two to become working again. Setup a shop in your apartment and do upgrades for people. The local guy I get stuff from (free) has tons of people who know him dropping off free machines to refurb and sell, he freecycles whatever he doesn't want to deal with. Most he does OS, HD, video, RAM upgrades and simple spyware cleanup.

As far as being profitable, what happened to just wanting to save macs from the crusher?

 

[Unknown_K]

Gah, I wish the recycling places around here weren't so selfish.

It is a business with small margins, you don't expect free groceries, free haircuts, free rent, etc from people so why should recyclers be any different?

 

[II2II]

It is a business with small margins, you don't expect free groceries, free haircuts, free rent, etc from people so why should recyclers be any different?

Yeah, but we're saving them! We're making the world safer for 68k Mac-kind! We're not asking for charity! We're being charitable!

}

 

[II2II]

I wonder how profitable a computer recycling outfit is.

Just try to establish relationships with people who will sell you old gear on the cheap. Believe it or not, a lot of people just want to get rid of this stuff and if you can have some sort of mutal understanding that snags you resalable stuff, that's great.

Being a computer recycler may or may not work out, particularly since you have found others in your area. Running a recycling drive is almost certainly a bad idea. As Unknown_K pointed out, you will get a bunch of toxic waste that people will want to dump on you (while they're busy selling the salable bits).

 

[Mike Richardson]

Most recycling places get flooded with CRT monitors, don't think you want to get stuck with those starting a recycling drive.
I could be wrong but recyclers get paid by businesses to take the stuff away, and get paid by others for the recycled parts. There is some value to the machines as scrap, you need to figure out what that is and then slightly overbid on pallate sized loads or nobody will want to bother with you.

Some recycling companies only deal with corporate clients while others deal with both. The city of Houston accepts computers, CRTs, etc. for recycling for free at 3 drop off sites. All of this stuff actually goes to the bastard recycler's warehouse - he has a contract and buys the pallets as-is. The city has a stated limit of 5 electronic items per month per customer, but this is only enforced by the collector's memory and within one drop off site. There are 3 sites, and I have access to 3 cars (mine and 2 friends), so we could possibly get rid of 5 x 3 x 3 or 45 CRT monitors per month just by sending them to these various sites free of charge.

You need to figure out a value added service like taking in dead LCD monitors fixing them and then reselling them. Most just need a few capacitors and maybe a transister or two to become working again. Setup a shop in your apartment and do upgrades for people. The local guy I get stuff from (free) has tons of people who know him dropping off free machines to refurb and sell, he freecycles whatever he doesn't want to deal with. Most he does OS, HD, video, RAM upgrades and simple spyware cleanup.
As far as being profitable, what happened to just wanting to save macs from the crusher?

I am about to sign a lease on a small office and warehouse. It's about 275 sq ft of office and 800 sq ft. of warehouse. Compare to the current storage unit of 100 sq ft. and I just exploded in available room. I'm looking for new ways to monetize the new space. My friend will be running a repair shop specializing in inexpensive repairs for out of warranty Macs. I will also be doing more local pickups now that I have a place that's not my apartment, to meet people at. So now I am seeking out large lots of more recent Macs like iMacs that I can sell on the website.

Saving Macs from the crushers is still a core goal. I will have plenty of space for that, and I pledge never to part out a working Mac. If the price is fair, I will pick up the old beige Macs and all that stuff and offer it here and on the site and eBay and wherever else. Travis Hunt is working on a non profit that gives Macs with educational software to kids and stuff and I'll probably be donating some of the LC 580s and stuff that are harder to sell, the ones I get in a pallet for $5.

 

[Mike Richardson]

Getting a lot of CRT monitors might be a problem if I held my own recycling drive. One way to get rid of them would be to simply give away all the CRTs that I receive a few weeks after I receive them. Someone needs a working monitor, they can come and pick it up for free, one or one hundred if they want, as long as they're gone. The non-working ones can be marked as such and given away or entered into the city's free recycling.

 

[II2II]

It's not just monitors that you have to concern yourself about. And even working monitors will be hard to deal with since most people won't accept just any CRT these days. Things like 15" and smaller CRTs are not going to have takers. Even 17" CRTs will be tough to give away.

You'll probably find that you'll be parting out stuff in order to get more money. People will pay more for smaller bits because they don't want to get a bunch of trash along with what they really want. After all, they would have to pay for that trash and pay for the cost of shipping trash.

You should probably be finding people who will take scrap metal off your hands, and be prepared to strip systems down to scrap metal. The plastic bits you can probably just rent a dumpster for. Things like circuit boards though you'll have to find a way to dispose of properly.

Also don't expect the city to not catch onto what you're doing. It may take a few months, but they will eventually recognise your face. Be prepared with a backup plan for that.

 

[Unknown_K]

You can allways post a sign in the front of the warehouse with a huge bin stating "mac recycling" and see what turns up daily (make sure it is covered).

 

[Mike Richardson]

It's not just monitors that you have to concern yourself about. And even working monitors will be hard to deal with since most people won't accept just any CRT these days. Things like 15" and smaller CRTs are not going to have takers. Even 17" CRTs will be tough to give away.

I gave away a CRT monitor once on CraigsList, and it went pretty fast. I would just have to test the waters and see. A lot of people are trying to sell them for anywhere from $4 to $20 each. I might be able to sell nicer flat glass, 17" or 19" ones.

You'll probably find that you'll be parting out stuff in order to get more money. People will pay more for smaller bits because they don't want to get a bunch of trash along with what they really want. After all, they would have to pay for that trash and pay for the cost of shipping trash.

I have no problem parting out PCs, or Macs that have some flaw (ruined case, bad major component that I don't have lying about, etc.)

You should probably be finding people who will take scrap metal off your hands, and be prepared to strip systems down to scrap metal. The plastic bits you can probably just rent a dumpster for. Things like circuit boards though you'll have to find a way to dispose of properly.

I will have access to a dumpster, so I can get rid of some non-toxic stuff that way. There's plenty of places that will take scrap metal and I can probably get some quotes and find who will pay the most.

Also don't expect the city to not catch onto what you're doing. It may take a few months, but they will eventually recognise your face. Be prepared with a backup plan for that.

It's not a viable plan in the long run, but it is probably sufficient for a one-off recycling drive. I'm pretty sure the city gets paid for each pallet of stuff that the bastard recycler takes away, so the city probably doesn't care, and I know for a fact that the recycler takes all the CRT monitors, palletizes them, and sends them away somewhere - he doesn't do any actual recycling of the monitors. He could be sending the stuff to India or something where little kids take them apart for scrap, but I don't think the city would affiliate themselves with a recycler who did that.

I still have a few other options for getting rid of the CRTs. Goodwill accepts CRTs; only larger newer flat front CRTs are sold in their shop and all others are recycled - Dell foots the bill, so I'm not disadvantaging Goodwill. I have taken about a dozen CRTs to Goodwill over time. There are also other recycling drives held by other companies, and some companies do take CRTs for free drop off, usually with a quantity limit.

 

[Mike Richardson]

Once I get the warehouse up and going I'm going to advertise free computer recycling and see what I get. The CRTs have some copper that can be extracted easily, and the VGA cables have some worth too, so I can cut that off before I take it to city recycling. I just need to find some buyers for such things. I might hold a recycling drive as well, but I'm not sure how to go about doing that. I would need to partner with a church or some such, and maybe give them a monetary donation such as $1 for each CPU or something so they would be willing to endorse it.