6 Money-Making Tips for Organizing Your Scrap

We always mentioned how important it is to separate your scrap metals before heading to the yard. We can’t stress that enough for many reasons. It makes the operation of unloading and weighing up easier and usually makes you more money by separating your metals. Therefore, you make more money! Win-win for everyone!

Know What Materials You Have

Knowing what scrap you have and organizing it before you head to the yard makes the trip quicker and will most likely earn you more money. If you need help separating or identifying your metals, use our scrap metal guide with pictures, videos, and descriptions.

How To Separate Your Scrap Metal

  1. Box Materials: Be sure to have bins and other containers ready when you return from scrapping at your business or home. Having your scrap separated at your central hub will help you collect and see the quantity of each material as you collect. It will also make it easier to load into your truck when ready to make your next trip to the yard. When collecting your metals from taking items apart, you can have pieces of various metals like copper, brass, aluminum, or steel that can be placed in separate containers. It is easy to weigh them before going to your yard and knowing how much you are collecting if you decide to hold onto the material until prices are where you want them.
  2. Should Your Strip Wire: Be sure if you have various types of wires, you also have those separated. If you have bare copper or other bare metal wires, keep them separate from the other copper wires with insulation. If you have enough insulated wires to strip them to make more money, keep the leftover insulation separate. One of the rules we try to encourage scrappers to use is the “pinky wire rule.” Whenever you have a wire thicker than your pinky finger, it is an excellent gauge to think about stripping it for the copper inside. Also, consider how much of the wire you have if you want to save it to collect more before stripping it all.
  3. Collecting E-Scrap: When scrapping electronics you will come across different types of computer board, like low-grade boards, motherboards, harddrives, CPU’s and more. When taking these out of your electronics be sure to keep them separate, some boards can be worth 10x more than others. It is essential to separate your e-scrap when taking apart materials. The smaller pieces like CPUs and RAM boards can be mixed up easily but are valuable materials. Making sure to separate them and stock up before you sell is vital. Check with your local scrap yard to see what boards they accept.
  4. Collect Your Copper: Copper is a scraper’s gold, so separating it is essential. Keeping your #1 and #2 copper tubing and wires separate is critical. #1 copper wire/pipe is clean and has no solder, paint, or rust; the #2 copper wire/tube will have a tin coat, solder, Brass fittings, or other impurities. Be sure to know the difference in copper wire types your yard buys so that when you get there, you have everything separated so that they don’t mix it and you lose out.
  5. Separate Your Steel: Keep your steel and iron metals and objects separate from your other metals. Steel is a prevalent metal that can degrade other metals if mixed in or attached. Check it with a magnet to quickly see what steel or iron (ferrous metal) is. If it sticks it is a ferrous metal like steel or iron, if it doesn’t stick it will be a non-ferrous metal. If you have pieces of materials like aluminum or stainless steel with magnetic steel attached, do your best to remove them. That can downgrade the material significantly, losing you money.
  6. Know Your Containers Weight: Not that we’re saying your scrap yard won’t do it, but make sure you know your containers’ weight before heading to the yard so you know what the tare weight is. Sometimes, you want to ensure you are treated right and get the scrap weight you deserve. When you see the weight of your containers, it helps when you look at your receipt after you weigh in with your yard. If they are shaving off several pounds from your tare weight, then maybe it’s time to check with them or try another yard.

Separating your materials will make your yard trip quicker and easier. You will know what materials you have when weighing up, and the scale manager will have an easier time paying you the proper prices for the materials you have.