recyclers will not buy burnt copper

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mjf

mjf

Senior Member
Location
The incredible, yet very expensive, Hudson Valley,
cost effectiveness

cost effectiveness

Around here when scrap bright copper was at it's highest (aprox $3.25 lb), unstripped romex was $1.00lb. Now bright copper has dropped to about $1.70lb but unstripped romex is still $0.70lb, it's not worth it to strip it.
Atleast it's not worth it to me. Thankfully I'm busy with work and there are tooooo many other life things to do in my free (ha ha, what's that) time.
I guess if i was sitting around twiddleing my thumbs, or had overextended myself (you know, refinance the house and by a boat and/or a SUV(that I really couldn't afford), like so many folks did) maybe I'd be stripping all my wire.

peace
 
O

Ohmy

Senior Member
Location
Atlanta, GA
I remember burning off insulation as a kid with my dad. I think it was frowned on even back then. Its mos diff not allowed by our scrape dealers anymore.

We never strip our wire even large pieces. Its just not worth the time.
 
e57

e57

Senior Member
Location
San Francisco, CA
A post to hold the wire and a draw knife...

83-KN17%20lg.jpg
 
E

Electrical guy

Member
Depending on how much wire you have, buy a stripping machine $700-$1200. I go through about 1200lbs of scrap a year Romex, #14 to 500mcm. Return on investment is less then 1 year the wire gets stripped on a daily basis, time to strip is about 5min every day included in the price of the job, about 15-25hrs a year if you do it in one shot. Lots of machines available on the net shop around.
 
e57

e57

Senior Member
Location
San Francisco, CA
Power Tech said:
Neat tool. Have you used it?
Click to expand...
Nope.... I could make one.... But truthfully I get paid far too much waste time stripping or even collecting scrap. If I were to do it as a side thing... It still would not be worth my time or effort. I let any soul willing to pick it up or out of the dumpster deal with it. Often that poor soul would be an apprentice who gets all of it to turn into pig-tails, or back to the shop for an annual run to the recycler for bigger stuff, but most often it's some laborer on the job sweeping floors looking to do it for the few bucks he might make out of it.
 
P

Power Tech

Senior Member
Location
Lebec, California
Electrical guy said:
Depending on how much wire you have, buy a stripping machine $700-$1200. I go through about 1200lbs of scrap a year Romex, #14 to 500mcm. Return on investment is less then 1 year the wire gets stripped on a daily basis, time to strip is about 5min every day included in the price of the job, about 15-25hrs a year if you do it in one shot. Lots of machines available on the net shop around.
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What kind do you use? Is it the best? Or, Awe shoulda got a V8.
does it work good on the small stuff?
 
e57

e57

Senior Member
Location
San Francisco, CA
Seems to me that there could be money made if you provided a service by the hour stripping wire in a community/area - or buying scrap at a price in between the insulated and stripped price if you had a machine that was good at it. But that margin would be thin IMO.
 
C

cruzJD

Member
We have a manual one at our shop. http://www.striptec.com/a.htm If it?s a shorter chunk of wire I find it quicker to do it with a knife. Anything smaller than 14 gage just gets tossed in one box as is. They want everything larger then 14 gage cut to 48? or less now. Some how we end up with more copper pipe then we do copper wire and we only do electrical in our shop.
 
E

Electrical guy

Member
Power Tech said:
What kind do you use? Is it the best? Or, Awe shoulda got a V8.
does it work good on the small stuff?
Click to expand...

800HP twin 454 Turbo charged, it's the best since slice bread, it has a tendancy to restructure the 14 gauge to its atomic state but I found an atomic re-animator at a Cern garage sale they had it left over when they built the Super Collider.:grin:
 
Buck Parrish

Buck Parrish

Senior Member
Location
NC & IN
rt66electric said:
I normally save all of my scrap then burn it on my brothers 'out in the sticks' brush/burn pile.. I have just learned that the local metal recycle shops will NOT buy burnt copper??? I have about +300LBs sitting/waiting for the price to go up. They will buy wire with insulation still on for chump change.
who ya going to call???
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It's probably so it can be more easily identified. In case their was a big thef in the area.
Somebody here pulled down a 1/4 mile of phone wire off of the utilitiy's ploes. Imagine what that would look like burnt. A big glob.
And no finger prints.;)

Since it is a recycle place. Perhaps they recycle the insulation , too.
 
brian john

brian john

Senior Member
Location
Leesburg, VA
How about we DO NOT BURN WIRE, bad for air quality, bad for you and bad for your kids and neighbors.

Trying to be polite here but burning insulation seems a bit on the side of, well STUPID.
 
LarryFine

LarryFine

Master Electrician Electric Contractor Richmond VA
Location
Henrico County, VA
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
brian john said:
How about we DO NOT BURN WIRE, bad for air quality, bad for you and bad for your kids and neighbors.

Trying to be polite here but burning insulation seems a bit on the side of, well STUPID.
Click to expand...
Same with pressure-treated wood, just for safety's sake.
 
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