Post: #1

For a young up and comer like myself, salvaging/recycling scrap metal is a really great way to make money, work outside and be your own boss. I've done this job since I was probably 12 - 14 and it beats the hell out of standing around some shitty summer job and making minimum wage.

I'll break it down for you:

Where I live there's a lot of farms/industrial construction work/huge redneck trash houses. All these places are always loaded down with things like broken down old farm equipment, construction debris like re-bar and left over metal and old empty beer cans/broken down lawn mowers etc... (I don't do anything too heavy, or that can't be cut up. Since I'm just one dude).

These places are everywhere around me and a quick 15 minute drive is all that's needed to scope them out (I only do the ones with a lot of metal debris).

I stop by these places and offer to clean up the area for a small fee (and to be in charge of disposing of the metal). These people never think about the metal and whatnot, but they're really happy to have the place cleaned up (side note: all the motherfuckers are cheap asses, so you won't make money on cleaning up their shitty yards).
After like an hour or two of hard work rounding up all their shit, I throw it on my trailer and haul it off to the scrap metal recycling center (there's one 30 minutes from my house), where I get paid (in cash) again just for bringing the materials in.

Now, your probably thinking "what's that pay? Like 20 bucks. This sounds lame," but I assure you that this business is very lucrative. It's not too uncommon for me to make a couple hundred in a day, in fact I once made $600 over the course of a weekend (from cleaning up a ton of beer cans and barbed wire). Also there is next to no investment cost to get into this business and it's something that a lot of dudes could easily do on the weekends.

Post: #2

This is good business. I got a couple guys right now pulling out drapery tracks from hotel here in Hawaii.

What you should start doing is calling around to all the companies in your area that sell window treatments and offer free, professional removal service. 9 times out of ten those people just throw the stuff away. I get the extrusion prices for everything I bring in. The guy I sell to even considers mini-blinds extrusions.

My biggest score collecting scrap was 10 thousand plus pounds of irrigation tubes from a farm. That's another good group of people to call. Irrigation supply companies and plumbing companies. Again, offer your professional removal service.

You can really call anybody that does any form of demo work and tell them you'll take away stuff for free. Just check out the job first so you don't get over your head.

Once you get enough contacts people will start calling you. I gotta go look at some boat hulls tomorrow which should be pretty good money.

Good Luck.

Aloha!

Post: #3

Thanks for the tip on irrigation. There's a ton of that around me, so I'm going to have to check it out.

Post: #4

Yeah, when I used to work construction as a kid, a lot of cats would make money off copper.

The one cat who used to mentor me had a whole warehouse full of all kinds of stuff he would salvage and resell.

Not to mention materials for side jobs he could do for people and have no material costs.

There was a kid on here a while ago that said he would hit up estate sales for junk silver.

Sounded like a cool hustle he was on.

Post: #5

Copper is definitely where it's at.
A couple years back when copper prices were through the roof two dudes I know got busted for breaking into people's houses during the daytime. And stripping out piping and wires from the places. They got away with it for a pretty long time and made some decent coin, but eventually got busted.

Post: #6

Where I make copper money is with gutters and roof flashing.

Most demo guys know to sell the pipes, but they always overlook the rest.

Check these guys out: http://archives.starbulletin.com/2008/06...ory12.html

They just climbed up the poles on the side of the freeway and cut the lines down.

Aloha!