It puzzles me too but then I think back to the book Wiseguy (on which the movie Goodfellas was based). There was a line in the book where they were talking about one of their mob friends who liked to steal things. It went something like, “If you offered him $1 million dollars to not steal he would turn you down and figure a way to steal the million dollars from you.”
Some people are warped like that.
I forgot all about siding - we don’t have that here in the UK, as nearly all homes are made from brick or stone, and the guttering is plastic, or for very old buildings, cast iron. But if we did, I’m sure there would be a black market for it.
In our town the local recycler has a sign stating that you cannot bring in recyclables unless it is in a motorized vehicle.
So, now our poor homeless hard workers have to find a middleman to even turn in aluminum cans 
Stealing metal has been fast and easy money for drug users. No questions asked and the scrap dealer makes a profit by buying well under the market value. States have begun enacting laws to slow down the payment and get some tracking information. The copper plumbing will get cut out of a new house while it is being built. Or they will strip the actual wiring out of the house too.
After they stole a bronze statue of Sacagawea from a National Park at the end of the Lewis and Clark trail, near where I live, Oregon finally started to do something.
The scrap metal dealers are all in on the scam and will look the other way until they have to do the accounting. They will make double or triple the amount that they pay to some druggie who shows up with a peice of bridge or guardrail. The problem cannot be stopped until the accountability is placed upon the buyer of the illegal goods.
I overheard my FIL, a structural engineer, talking on the phone with a contractor some time ago; the latter was complaining that the price of rebar had tripled over recent years, because virtually all the steel in the world was going to China.
There have been reports locally of someone crawling under high-clearance vehicles with a sharp tool so they can get the catalytic converter out and steal it. Apparently there’s platinum or something in it.
Seems like a lot of work to me.
Around here roof gutters used to be copper - but you don’t see them anymore below the second storey, and often not even then. Most were stolen, a few were taken down by the owners and sold off before they were stolen.
Yeah, but there really is platinum in catalytic converters. Car dealers were getting hit around here with that. A few of the more stupid thieves were run over/crushed by the vehicles they were working on as a result of the usual unbelievable stupidity.
That is totally wrong. It’s not that difficult to tell a systematic thief from a desperate person scraping by. The homeless, desperate person that picks up scrap is actually a benefit to society. They clean up waste, they contribute to recycling and they ask for nothing except a meager wage for their effort. They are actually a productive element. Your local government should get a clue and install some kind of regulation that is well written that will prevent this injustice.
When I lived in Chicago I had to admire the Vietnamese that would go into Lincoln Park on weekends and pick up aluminum cans. There was no deposit so they were only worth the scrap price. The men and kids would collect the cans and the women would take two rocks and crush them. They helped clean the park, they made a little money and they showed me what being industrious was all about. Good for them! The guys that go through garbage cans and collect bottles and cans (amidst the dog shit) deserve every cent they earn.
Why do people resent such efforts and try to inhibit them?
I’ve taken old metal desks and the like to the scrapyard before. I think I made all of ten dollars for it, but it wasn’t much work and God only knows what I’d have done with the giant, heavy, beat-up desk.
I get that, but again if you’ve got a gang of hard-working loons with power tools at your disposal, wouldn’t it make more sense to, say, raid a vodka plant, or jack a truck full of DVD players, or any number of regular, rather low-risk criminal activities that still net a hell of a lot more bang-for-sweat than scrap metal ?
Yes, but you are not talking to a bunch of guys that have really thought things through. It’s like gamblers. The odds are always against them but on some level they have convinced themselves that they can beat them. Some people are in it for the action and the challenge rather than the actual merits. It doesn’t make sense to you or me but these fools keep on doing it. Criminals and gamblers, deep down they want (need) to lose. It’s a hard concept for an honest person to grasp but it is a powerful force in some people’s psyche.
Those all sounds like pretty intense crimes with a lot of conflict. With scrap metal nobody’s guarding it and often nobody will even notice it missing for weeks if ever. It’s a pretty low-risk crime as far as crimes go. It seems like when you get the stereotypical druggie/moron getting caught for it it’s because they did something incredibly stupid-- you never hear about anyone getting caught for most of the stuff that seems to disappear rather discretely. I suspect that your average metal thief is probably just some morally-challenged but typically law-abiding schmo who sees an opportunity for the proverbial perfect crime and takes it.
It’s worth repeating the the vast majority of metals that are recycled are not stolen.
Awesome answers folks – I didn’t think my thread would cause such a lively discussion.
Any way, I guess the way I framed the question was a bit simplistic. Here is what was really on my mind. I remember back in Jr. High we would make projects out of aluminum. The teacher would throw aluminum cans and what not into a small forge, and then when it was melted, pour it into a mold to make rough parts, like dustpan handles for example. The rest he would pour into a mold that made little aluminum bricks that would be used later. Now if I were to get my hands on a kiln, (or I could use my back yard fire pit), what is stopping me from collecting up all my junk aluminum, (Soda cans, pie pans, foil, cat food cans – you get it), when it accumulates – melt it down and make little bricks out of it. Eventually when I have a good number of these things, sell them to the recycling yard. Might pay for the electricity bill or something. Why couldn’t I do this with Copper? Brass? The real problem is I need to make extra money, I have a good job, but in these times it’s not quite enough – I would never change jobs now, and there doesn’t seem to be much part time work around here. So brings the idea of collecting, processing and selling scrap metal (not Mettle – thank you). What are the challenges? What is the law? How do I find out what this stuff is worth? I know this looks like a new question but there it is.
Thanks,
Janx
there are hundreds of alloys of aluminum, they would have less recycling value if you mixed them.
you likely would loose money doing this. physical compaction is worth doing.
My recycler pays ten times as much for a load of just pop cans than it does for a load of mixed aluminum. Not only that, but turning in cans without melting them down is less effort for YOU.
So you might want to contact local recyclers and do a little research as to what they buy, in what form.
There’s no reason to melt it down. They pay per pound whether it’s a brick ir a trash bag full of junk. And as johnpost said, they have to seperate it by alloy type so probably wouldn’t be very interested in a brick of unknown aluminum. Compacting it would save space in storage and in your vehicle, but if that’s not a worry, might as well save your energy.
The biggest tip I can give is to seperate different metals and different types of aluminum and make sure everything is “clean”. I don’t mean “non-dirty”, I mean it needs to be pure aluminum. Make sure to take all plastic and other metals off first or the recycling peole will have to do it and will pay you less.
As I was there one day, someone tried to sell them an aluminum camper top for a truck. They said they’d have to spend so long taking it apart that they could only take it if the guy gave them $50.
SPOooooo … Melting it down is a BAD idea. I thought melting it down would make the “product” clearer. Guess I was WRONG. So any dopers out there got any ideas on how to make some quick cash without breaking the law? Obviously THIS isn’t the way to go - Bummer
This time of year lots of work can be found doing:
[ul]Leaf clean up. (Rake flower beds only, mower mulch and bag the rest. There are lawn care forums online where you can find information on how to do this.)[/ul]
[ul]Light tree trimming and branch removal.[/ul]
[ul]Cleaning out rain gutters. [/ul]
[ul]Replacing missing or damaged fence planks for homes with wooden fences.[/ul]
Any of these should pay around $25 - $30 an hour (but give estimates for finished job; people will balk if you quote that as hourly rate).
Advertise in the paper, Craig’s List and/or tape up flyers door-to-door.
Also (since it sounds like you have a truck) you could haul unwanted items to the dump for people who need to clean out their garages, etc., and don’t have trucks themselves.
With a little practice you can make much more money, much more quickly, by doing any of these than by trying to locate and sell scrap metal.