HR 2284 The Responsible Electronics Recycling Act - The Right Thing To Do

H.R. 2284, The Responsible Electronics Recycling Act, would prevent the export of non-functional or shredded electronic scrap to developing countries. This is an important bill and one that I think should be passed. For starters, it would result in more U.S. based jobs and it would also mean less material containing toxics being sent to places that have lower environmental and labor protection standards than the U.S.

Back when I was doing a large scale electronic salvage project, I sold large amounts of scrap to a Taiwan based company. I was unaware at the time, the effect that material was having overseas. It wasn't until several years later that I read Bill Moyers' Global Dumping Ground: The International Traffic in Hazardous Waste that I realized what I had done. In fact, the fellow I sold my scrap to is mentioned in the book. I'm not sure if the environmental and human abuse overseas is as bad now as it was then, but I'm quite sure that conditions are below U.S. standards.

You might take a look at H.R. 2284 and if you feel like I do, urge your representative to vote for it.

www.RecyclingSecrets.com for Free Home Based Salvage and Recycling Information Including: Metals, Deconstruction and Used Building Materials, Gold and Precious Metals and E-Waste. Check out: How to Make Money in the Home Based Salvage and Recycling Business

How I Get Computer and Electronic Scrap Free and Make Good Money With It

Lately I've been focusing most of my salvage and recycling business on building materials and parts for alternative energy systems. I use a lot of this at my own home and sell some to earn a living. But, given the soaring prices of gold, silver, platinum and other non-precious metals, I've recently gotten back into electronics and computer salvage and recycling.

Here's what I'm doing

I live in a rural area so I'm:

• Running ads on Craigslist telling folks that I'll pickup used computers, monitors, printers, electronic games, cell phones -- anything electronic for free. People are more than willing to give these things away in most regions of the country because they usually have to transport these things to recycling centers and then PAY to recycle them. Since I'm in a rural area, I've setup scheduled pickup days so I don't burn too much gas. I have a small Nissan pickup that normally does the job and if I luck into more, I have a small 8 foot trailer that I build from a Harbor Freight kit.
  
  
• I've also negotiated relationships with recycling centers in most of the towns and where there are no recycling centers, I've made a deal with a local market to allow folks to drop off their electronic stuff there so I can pickup.
  
  
• Recently I stopped at my local thrift store and there were two old 60s vintage IBM workstations and a mini-computer. These early computers have many times the thickness of gold plate on fingers and backplanes compared to newer computers. These were dumped at their back door when they were closed. They figured, rightly, that they had little chance of selling them and were very happy that I would take them away right then. So, I stop at all the thrift stores and leave them a flyer and cards so they know who to call when they get too many computers and the like - and they get a lot.
  
  
• I also post flyers on any bulletin board I can find and leave a few at each yard sale I visit.
  
  
• Freecycle works out quite well. I post wanted ads frequently and always get a good response. I also place ads in my local free giveaway classified newspapers. they're cheap and a lot of people read them from end to end.
  
  
• Magnetic signs on the doors of your truck or van help as well.
  

How I Make Money With All This Electronic Stuff

I've found that a lot of the computers are fairly new and have been replaced because they've gotten slow, crashed or just don't run right. Frequently the problem can be fixed by simply running a chkdsk and defragging the hard drive. Next step is to check for viruses, spyware and malware. I did find it difficult to get really good software and information about viruses, spyware, malware and their removal until I found a really good manual that explains it all plus provides the software to do it right. It's saved me a lot of money and precious time.

Doing these two things to the recent computers gets them running good again. Good enough to sell easily for $100 to $300 depending on what it is. I usually charge around 20% of what stores charge for a comparable computer. I also mix and match, taking parts from two to make one good computer and the like.

The older computers and ones that aren't reusable I scrap out for precious metals and parts. It's been awhile since I've dealt with a refiner so I'm still checking around. I used to get a very good deal from Cascade Refining in Salt Lake City, Utah, but before I use them again, I'll send a small test quantity of boards and connectors and see how it comes out. Some folks also sell this stuff on eBay, but for now, I'll stay away from that. It is an option though if you are so inclined. I've learned from previous experience that it does not pay me to refine myself - too dangerous and time consuming.

As I find out more about legitimate buyers of parts, details of amounts of precious and other metals in various computers and components and refiners, I'll post here so you can learn about them as well.

Complimentary Money Maker

I had trouble finding really good software that would really help getting a slow, virus infected computer going again. I finally found a really good manual about it and good software as well. Actually it is an entire business plan for making a good living just removing viruses and malware for people. I'm doing this on the side for the people who haven't yet bought a new computer and are trying to keep their old one going. Check out this spyware and virus removal manual and software for yourself. I found that it is well worth the money.

Check here, if you'd like to learn more about my decades in the home based salvage and recycling business.

Best of Luck

www.RecyclingSecrets.com for Free Home Based Salvage and Recycling Information Including: Metals, Deconstruction and Used Building Materials, Gold and Precious Metals and E-Waste. Check out: How to Make Money in the Home Based Salvage and Recycling Business

How to Estimate Gold Plating Thickness and Content

Here's an excerpt from a very good article:

The board is made over-sized, in order to provide electrical connections to the areas of the board that require plating. When the plating has been done, the "picture frame" is trimmed off with a die.

We used to hire cheap labour to cut off the gold plated areas of the picture frames with tin snips - the good offset type - you can buy them left or right handed. This will reduce the volume and weight considerably and will make the pile much less bulky. I, myself, have filled many barrels with just the gold portions, using this method - it's not so bad - wear leather work gloves. We then stripped the gold in a cement mixer with cyanide/peroxide.

Even if you don't process this yourself, by trimming it, you are putting it into a state that can be sampled and assayed, before having it refined. This is much harder to do with the picture frames, since many of them are different. You might also have a separate barrel for pale looking gold pieces.

If it is true immersion gold, it's worth about $.04 to $.05/square inch, max. Immersion...

Download and Read the Entire Article

Mike
Home Based Salvage and Recycling Business Manual

Free How-To:: Gold from Electronic, Telecommunication & Computer Scrap

Free How-To: Gold from Electronic, Telecommunication & Computer Scrap

These reports chronicle my work in the recycling and salvage business. My only hope is that you will learn to prosper as I did and also learn from my mistakes. Best of Luck.

Part 1: To find the "gold" keep your eyes and ears open.

Part 2: Winning the Contract.

Part 3: Finding markets and getting the equipment you need.

Access the Electronic Gold Reports

Reminder Electronic Gold and Recycling Tips

Good Morning - It's been awhile since I've posted these links and some things have changed so I thought I'd repost some old and new links in case you missed them the first time around.

Also, I've recently been adding to Mike's Tips from the Field: Learn to profit in the home based recycling and salvage business.

Additions include:

High profits come from turning over your recycled and salvage material as quickly and as often as possible.

Learn how to bootstrap your home-based recycling business.

Home-Based Recycling Business Profits: Sell Used Tech Gadgets for Cash.

Home Based Recycling and Salvage 101: Bootsrap Yourself out of the Recession.

Recycling for Renewable and Alternative Energy: The next new big thing in recycling and salvage?

Soon I'll be writing more about recycling and salvage for the renewable and alternative energy fields, expanding to self-reliant systems for heating, cooling and alternative building materials. This IS the future for the home-based small recycling and salvage business.

I'll also be continuing my series on my work in the recycling and salvage fields. Once I finish up with the electronics and computer scrap, I'll bactrack a bit to my experience with metals, rural and farm salvage, and building deconstruction.

I hope that you'll stay with me. Lots to tell :)

Thanks!

Recycling Recovering & Refining Gold and Silver from Computer and Electronic Scrap

We've added some new videos about how to recycle, recover and refine Gold and Silver from computer and electronic scrap.

View the gold and silver videos

Visit RecyclingSecrets.com for free how-to manual about gold and precious metal recovery from electronic and computer scrap based on my own experience in the business

Free Guide For Setting Up an Electronics Recycling Business

Here's a free guide from the Northeast Recycling Council. Download the guide to setting up an electronics recycling business here.

Videos About Recovering Gold From Electronic and Computer Scrap

I've added several videos about recovering gold and silver from electronic and computer scrap. Click here to view the gold recovery videos.

Gold from Electronic, Telecommunication & Computer Scrap Part 1: To find the "gold" keep your eyes and ears open

Gold from Electronic, Telecommunication & Computer Scrap Part 1: To find the "gold" keep your eyes and ears open

06/29/2009
Right Place at the Right time:
To find the "gold" keep your eyes and ears open.
RecyclingSecrets.com
by Michael Meuser

This is the first in an ongoing series of articles about my experience in the electronic salvage, recycling and gold recovery business. This short first article is about the the importance of not only being in the right place at the right time, but also keeping your eyes and ears open. New installments, resources, how-to articles and news can be found at RecyclingSecrets.com

In the early 1980s I happened upon a little booklet entitled, Surplus & Salvage - the 20 to 30 pages I read changed my life forever. I went to work right away doing building deconstruction, rural salvage of all sorts, metals recycling and the like. Soon I was presented with the opportunity to enter the electronic surplus recycling and gold recovery fields. This is how I entered into this business.

During my workdays I frequented a nearby rural coffee shop in California's Mother Lode region. A lot of the guys in there were getting coffee before they were going off to work for a major telecommunications company. This was the time of their breakup during the 1980s. I got to know these guys and one fellow, in particular, told me that they were converting all of the long distant microwave repeater stations radios from tube type to solid state.

He said that there were tons and tons of scrap aluminum, copper, gold plated items, batteries, racks ... on and on and on ... at each station and that there were 18 stations that needed this scrap hauled away.

Up to this point of this major changeover from tubes to solid state, the smaller amounts of scrap ended up in local landfills, but this was way too much to dispose of in this manner.

The short of it is that starting with a broken down dodge van, I was able to bootstrap myself into a position where I owned my own large flatbed truck and fork lift, was able to hire semi trucks to haul the scrap to a yard in --- continued at recyclingsecrets.com

More to come. New articles will be listed at RecyclingSecrets.com (news, tools, and resources are also available here) and also at the Recycling Secrets Blog.