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The Recycling Entrepreneur ISSN: 1539 - 6789
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(c) Scott D. Andrews January, 2003
In this issue:
1. Announcements & Commentary
2. Is There ANYTHING You Ought to Refine Yourself?
3. Book Review: Platinum Recycling Made Easy, by Megan Rose, ISBN applied for, Penultimate Vision Portland, OR, 2002
4. Mystery Metals - What The Heck Is This and How Much Is It Worth?
5. Trivia Question - What is Elutriation?
Welcome back if you've been with us for a while! I have BIG news for you in this issue. As of the first of February, we will have a whole new look with many new features. I have been spending almost every waking moment (according to my "Web-widow" wife) working on "that damn website"!
What to look forward to: 1. a new, attractive presence 2. a working discussion forum with full access to current owners of my manuals 3. a search facility to find anything you're looking for on the site, including in the newsletter archives and, 4. active links to other support and reference sites.
And, as I've been threatening for some time now, the revisions to "High-Profit Recycling" will soon be online and available for download FREE to current owners. And boy, the wait will have been worthwhile. However, as I've also been telling you,if you do not currently have your copy of the manuals, you will be paying substantially more to own it.
Why am I going to be charging more? Well, one of the refinements and additions to the site will be a redux of work done almost 20 years ago by a gentleman by the name of Larry Poley. If you've been around recycling circles for twenty years or more, as I have,.you might recognize the name.
Mr. Poley published (in the 80's) a booklet on Tungsten Carbide and exotic alloys recycling. He was uniquely qualified to do so from the standpoint of owning (at that time) a business which traded in these materials. He had vast experience and access to assets (such as specialized testing labs) which allowed him to act profitably as a trader in specialized industrial scrap.
This is a market in which the economics and dynamics have changed since his seminal work. I, however, have located resources which will enable YOU to expand your recycling efforts and multiply your profits by using his techniques and my little-known resources.
Because prices for some of this scrap are lower than they were twenty years ago, you'll most likely find in your area what I've found in mine: companies are selling scrap worth a dollar or more a pound for two cents a pound with their everyday scrap! Do you see some profit potential here?
Frankly, I strongly considered making this a stand-alone manual to sell
as a back-end to my existing ones. I still may do this, but for the
foreseeable future I will be including it as a part of "High-Profit
Recycling" Had I developed it into a separate manual, I would have set a
price of $50 for it alone.
Regardless, this will actually be the first revision to "H-P R" and you'll
get it before any of the other chapters are revised!
Ok, what else, Scott? Well, I will be replacing the hard drives information with a newly updated chapter encompassing a variety of different disposable products - disposable cameras, toner and ink-jet cartridges, as well as many electronics and computer components and silver-oxide batteries.
I guarantee (as usual) that you'll be impressed that the new insider's information you'll receive will be worth many times what you've paid.
Speaking of toner cartridges, I had an experience a couple weeks ago which served to remind me of the soundness of my recycling philosophies. If you have any doubt that people will sell (or sometimes even GIVE) you valuable scrap at a fraction of its worth, pay attention.
I was a local mall after Christmas, I'd given my wife a teddy bear gift certificate from a local company which enables you to build your own bear. They then give you a 'birth certificate' for your bear. Bottom line: they had two commercial size HP laser printers churning out these certificates non-stop.
I noticed on the floor behind the check-out counter a couple of opened HP toner boxes, one of which had an obviously used cartridge sitting in it. Since I use an HP laser printer to produce the manuals you purchase from me, I have some inkling of what they are worth empty.
I asked the manager if they were throwing the empty away, and her. response was "we're SUPPOSED to send them back". I asked her if that meant they were going to send it back or if it was going in the trash. She then sheepishly admitted that she only "got around to" sending them back about half the time! Although the return shipping labels are provided along with the shipping being paid for them, and having UPS willing to pick them up at the business (in other words, NO work other than sealing the box was required), they couldn't be bothered to mess with them.
The message you need to incorporate into your every recycling effort is this: 1. people are more concerned with the everyday running of their business than they are with the value of the scrap generated by it. 2. generally, they are also incredibly lazy when it comes to getting rid of their scrap. And these are very valuable things to know, because if you're just a little smarter and harder working than your competition, you've got the ability to make a fortune.
Educate your customer that you are the expert at what you do and you're going to treat them fairly, and then be there every single time they have scrap to sell before your lazy competition. In this business, 80% of success is truly just SHOWING UP!
Let's wind up this commentary. If you received my mid-month update last week you've already looked at this info. If not, go here:
http://kitco.com/charts/livegold.html , then click on the "1 YEAR GOLD CHART" hotspot. Although silver has not yet followed the same steadily upward path as gold in the past 6 months, it soon will, only more explosively.Start your recycling business NOW, before everybody else is out there competing with you. I was listening to a talk radio station last week, and what do I hear but a radio ad for Lippincott, the largest mail-order buyer of scrap precious metals.
Lippincott has not (to my knowledge) done radio advertising to this extent for many years. This tells me something VERY important: they are expecting major price increases and want to buy as much scrap at TODAY'S prices as they can - and they're spending hundreds of thousands in advertising to do so. But remember, most people are too lazy to take the time to actually package and mail scrap to get money for it. Opportunity for YOU!!!
2. Is There ANYTHING You Ought to Refine Yourself?
I have made no secret of my feelings about refining your own scrap as part of your business. Yes, I DO supply copies of Bureau of Mines reports in my manuals which tell you specifically how to refine materials such as electronics and catalyst from converters.
But as I've always said, they are there for the specific purpose of dissuading you from attempting such foolishness. Refining is an expensive, time-consuming, frequently hazardous, and very exacting process not to be taken lightly by the neophyte. Not to mention, most scrap materials require large amount of scrap material to refine profitably. And once you've got your metal into ingot or bullion form, what are you going to do with it?
If you want to sock it away as an investment, fine. You are not a recycler, you are a refiner and investor. If, however, you actually want to make a profit on it, are you going to sell your pure metal to the public? To jewelers? To dentists? ...or you going to sell it to another refiner, who is going to take a few per cent for their profit?
But is there EVER a time when you might want to consider doing so?
I am reluctantly coming to the conclusion that the answer may be yes,
with a number of caveats. Did you look at the link I gave you last week for
MRS Scrap?
Here it is:
Look closely at the range of gold values they have recovered from everyday computer scrap. Notice how some of it is essentially worthless? Since some (many) of you loyal readers insist that you're going to make good money recycling the millions of tons of PC scrap out there, despite my best efforts to keep you solvent, let me tell you a little secret that I've hinted at before. With SOME types of scrap, the refiners are going to cover their costs by recovering the gold (which is what everybody recycles this stuff for) but are going to make a profit on the OTHER contained metals.
This is especially true with stuff like IC's, MLCC's, many capacitors, and so forth. When you obtain the book I review this month (if you're REALLY interested in this area) you'll get an eye-opening view of some stuff potentially worth refining, IF you can come up with adequate answers to the questions I posed earlier, namely -how are you going to make a profit when you sell your refined metals? Especially when you've got a few ounces of Rhodium, and no will pay more than 50% of spot value for it, for example.
You have to essentially be getting these materials for FREE to justify refining most of it yourself, in my experience. Although there may be SOME exceptions to this, such as in medical radio-opaque devices like in angiography and angioplasty use (catheters, guide wires, stents,marker bands, etc., where PGM's are often electrodeposited in the surface of the device), MOST of this material is very low-grade. It may be worth the time and expense of refining it yourself if you've and adequate, ongoing supply of it at an attractive price (as in FREE). Of course, you're working with some of the most expensive metals on earth, which in itself is intriguing.
Read the following book review before committing to doing this. Just remember, if you're going to play around with refining, especially the Platinum Group Metals, you're going to need some very specialized information and equipment. One book is not going to tell you everything you need to know, nor will you find EVERYTHING you might want to know ANYWHERE. Them who know ain't gonna tell all!
3. Book Review: Platinum Recycling Made Easy, by Megan Rose, ISBN applied for, Penultimate Vision Portland, OR, 2002
If you peruse the back issues of "The Recycling Entrepreneur" you'll come across a review I did a year ago of "Thrift Store Prospecting". Saying that Megan was not thrilled by my review might be termed an understatement, since I wasn't too positive in my critique. Lest you misinterpret this as hostility or bitterness towards one another, such is not the case.
Actually, we’ve had very frank but friendly conversation for over half an hour on the phone one day, along with her publisher. We are on a first name basis and I consider an ally in many ways, since our goals are similar.
Where we DO differ is in the fact that Megan comes from a mining and refining background, and I am a "junk man". Our methods and philosophies may differ in some respects, but we both agree and teach that there is an essentially unlimited amount of undervalued, underappreciated scrap material out there waiting for the sharp entrepreneur to capitalize upon it.
It is from that standpoint that I have looked forward to receiving her latest work: "Platinum Recycling Made Easy". From what I outlined above, you might be thinking that I'm going to do another 'hatchet job' on this book.
Just to lay that idea to rest, let me say right up front that my biggest gripe with this manual is the title! This is a big area where we part ways - I do not believe in such as a thing as 'easy' refining of the PGM's.
Profitable? - possibly! Worthwhile? - under the circumstances I've written, probably! Interesting? - definitely! But EASY? - not in my (limited) experience!
That being said, I am not going to detail everything Megan writes about. I am just going to tell you that she presents a very detailed, step-by-step and methodical for recovering "white metals" from scrap. And really, there is NO OTHER way to perform this work profitably except methodically, keeping records of every scrap item you process and what you recover from it.
So, if this is an area you are interested in exploring, get a copy of this book. The information and testing samples and techniques she includes with each copy are worth the price alone. By the way, I bought my copy for $60 on eBay, and that is where she is doing her primary marketing. Search under "platinum scrap" to find her listing. I do not receive any commission, over-ride, or profit-sharing for this recommendation, and yes, I DID buy my own copy for my reference library.
4. Mystery Metals - What The Heck Is This and How Much Is It Worth?
Ok, you've been out beating the bushes for scrap when you're presented with some material you're not familiar with. Sooner or later it's gonna happen to you, so be prepared. What-ya-gonna-do? Maybe it's some weird film, or some kind of wire or solder the business uses in their manufacturing process. Perhaps it is a square of dental alloy or just a bunch of scrap metal from a metal shop or manufacturing facility.
Once you get ahold of my new manual, this is likely to happen fairly frequently. The first thing to do is try to find out what this metal is used for. If you're talking to the business owner or his purchasing agent who buys the stuff new, try to get a brand name, or the original packaging it came in. If you can get this info, you're almost sure to be able to find its constituents, and therefore the value. How? With the online software I'm going to reveal to you in the new manual!
Secondly, our new discussion forum (full access to manual owners only) will have an area devoted to the subject of "mystery metals" where we'll try to help one another and draw upon one another's experience for this Obviously, it might take some time before we reach 'critical mass' in this area, but be sure to take advantage of this new resource.
If these resources aren't adequate to identify your mystery metal, try to get a sample. This will obviously be more difficult if it is a precious metal alloy and/or not easily divisible. Your results then will be dependent upon the willingness of the seller to get top dollar for it With a sample, you're going to first try to use your personal network of contacts in the same business or industry as the one with the scrap you're trying to ID. Show the sample to them and see if they can tell you what it is or what its named. There are over 160,000 alloys with unique names,
and your metal might have one. The person(s) you ask will probably be flattered that you asked. Still stumped? You might have to (last resort) pay an analytical lab to test it. You should have a good idea first that the total value of the metals will justify the expense of doing so. If it has precious metal content it should be fairly easy and inexpensive to determine its value with an assay. You just need to determine if its worth your time and money to pay for this.
You should be able to pretty closely value it using the testing methods in "High-Profit Recycling", or at least narrow it down if it is not precious by utilizing the DoD file on the CD-ROM. A magnet and spark test will tell you much. The full range of chemicals necessary to test for various alloys is not too expensive if you're serious about your business. There is nothing more impressive to a seller than a buyer who can tell them what an unknown alloy is worth by using some simple spot and spark testing.
One other, little-known resource is a full-service scrap yard in your area that might have a electro-diagnostic tester on site. Try to find such a facility in your area and establish a working relationship with them. One hand washes the other and you might just convince them to run a free test or two on your mystery metals occasionally!
5. Trivia Question - What is Elutriation?
This is a little-known gem to add to your vocabulary. In the 70's and 80's the Bureau of Mines did a lot of interesting research on the scrapping of automobiles and the separation of the different components to maximize the financial return for scrap yards.
One of the methods they looked into was separation by flotation – literally putting the shredded scrap into various pools of liquids to separate by density or specific gravity. This process is called elutriation and is used commonly in the processing of metals and especially ores.
Coming next month - Something a little different! I am going to be sending you an online survey after the first of the month, asking YOU what you want me to write about. Next month's issue will consist of YOUR desires and requests. I'm also going to give a valuable (get the hint?) incentive to respond to the survey - I think you'll like it!
Be sure to get online and look at the new site next month. Sign up for the discussion forum and participate! And, for heaven's sake, if you do not yet have your copy of "High-Profit Recycling" get it before the end of January, when the price goes up!
http://www.recyclebiz.com/online order form.htm
'Til then, thanks for reading.
With Warm Regards - Scott Andrews
P.S. - Want to get a guaranteed $3,000 return for a $97 investment? Go here and GET this information:
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