Old Automobile Reuse - Farm Equipment, Condom Machines

Very interesting article about a fellow who makes all sorts of things out of old car parts. It makes you hink of all the interesting and useful parts in automobiles that are scrapped in the U.S. Here's an excerpt:

Sierra Leone's Foday Melvin Kamara trained as an automobile engineer but, instead of manufacturing vehicles, he specialises in turning old car parts into agro-processing equipment and condom machines.

He started his business in 1997 with an investment of less than $100 (£63) which he had saved while he was in Germany as a student.

He told the BBC's African Dream series that he used part of that money to rent a house and the rest to buy steel products which were transformed into shovels and door hinges.

Indeed, we are able to convert waste to wealth”

"Then we sold that and we ploughed a profit into the business," he said. That initial profit was used to acquire scrap materials.

"Indeed, we are able to convert waste to wealth," Mr Kamara pointed out.

Read the entire article at BBC.com.

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Free and Cheap Wood Stove Recycling and Reuse

Hi - I should have told you about this a few months ago, but I've been so busy with my own salvage work I've been a bit slow on the posts. I'll try to post more frequently.

At any rate, it looks like it's going to be a long cold winter in many parts of the U.S. Heating fuel prices are very high. Around here heating oil is $1 a gallon more than it was last year - same with propane. Natural gas is higher as well.

At the same time, scrap iron prices are high. I've seen many loads waiting in lines at the scrap yards with wood stoves in them. Sure a 300 pound woodstove is worth $30 or $40 in scrap but it is worth so much more as a working wood stove.

Over the last months I've picked up 6 wood stoves. Two were free, one I paid $60 for and the other two I bought for scrap prices off of trucks on their way to the scrap yard. The free ones I picked up with a wanted listing in Craigslist. Seems that once someone remodels and changes heating modes or upgrades their wood stove the old one often ends up in the back yard or garage. They're too heavy for most folks to handle, but they can be handled quite easily by one person.

I can handle them and I'm 66 years old. Any stove that I've run into I can tip on its side onto a 4 wheel dolly. Then it's quite easy to roll it onto my Harbor Freight tilt bed trailer.

With heating costs so high, woodstoves are coming back in vogue and there's a ready market for them. The last free one I got is a really nice LOPI. It retails for $1800. This one was in a back yard and the door and air control were all frozen up and it was very rusty. Some soaking with WD-40 and some high heat paint was all it took to get it working properly. As I type this I'm looking across my living room at the flames through the glass door of this little LOPI gem.

The other 5 plus the one I replaced with the LOPI are sold or will be sold soon. Depending on the year and model I can get anywhere from $250 to $1000 for a wood stove and I haven't run into one that I couldn't refurbish for $25 or less. Just be sure to stick to the welded steel plate ones. Some of the older cast iron types leak and/or have cracks.

So, try running a wanted ad in your local Craigslist, tell people you deal with, keep an eye out for old stoves in yards. If you start looking for them, you'll find them.

I'm still hunting for more and will continue to do so all year as I believe good used wood stoves is a growing market.

Good Luck

Mike

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

With the effects of climate change, peak oil, recession and financial crisis every growing, recycling and salvage for renewable and alternative energy will become increasingly important.

In my recycling and salvage of electronics and telecommunication work I found that there was a ready market for some quite used very large batteries. People with home power systems were willing to pay quite a bit for them and still save money over purchasing them new. These same folks were also looking for generators (alternators), meters, inverters, wire and many other electricity and wiring related items.

Renewable and alternative energy technology is ever-changing. As newer more efficient photovoltaic (PV) panels and complete roofing systems are created, older ones - that are still functional - will be replaced. Though these old ones may not be as efficient as the new, they certainly will have applications and be in demand for home and small business power. Also, as the new ones come to market, there will be heavy discounts on the old that you can take advantage of.

Over the next years the battery packs in hybrid cars will be replaced. I'm guessing that even if the entire pack - an assembly of several batteries - is "bad" there are some batteries in the pack that are good and the others may well be reconditionable. In the past I have found that around 3/4 of the batteries that are replaced can be reconditioned with a very slow 1 amp charge over several days. The manufacturers of the new "smart" chargers claim that they will recondition batteries and bring them back to near their original storage capacity. It is worth checking out... more.

Read entire article at RecyclingSecrets.com

Salvage Lumber Success in Petaluma: $700,000 in three years

Salvage Lumber Success in Petaluma: $700,000 in three years

12/17/2009 There's big money in salvage lumber. This fellows success reminds me of how well I did in the deconstruction business. I often found that when I tore down an old building or structure - that I usually got for free or was paid to tear down - I would have all or most of the material sold before it ever hit the ground. I'll be including more about my experience in deconstruction and building material salvage in upcoming realeases of my Gold from Electronic, Telecommunication & Computer Scrap: Experiences from the Field. Please check my Deconstruction, Recycling and Reusing Lumber and Building Materials pages for more articles and inspiration.

Read about making $700,000 in three years in the salvage lumber business