I was all set to call the township today to schedule a pickup of two ugly old fridges I had left on my curb strip along with a dishwasher, but when I got up this morning, they were gone. The beat up dishwasher stood all by itself looking sad and lonely, obviously feeling quite rejected.
When I eventually made my call to Public Works and scheduled a pickup for the dishwasher, I asked the fellow if they ever made Sunday runs, since the fridges had disappeared. He simply said “Junk men.” According to him, about half the stuff they are scheduled to pick up disappears before they ever get there.
Sure enough, when I called my wife to let her know, she told me that a pickup truck had just stopped in front and the guy was loading up the dishwasher. I kindly called up Public Works and cancelled my request.
What in blazes does someone want with two nasty old fridges painted in Seventies tones, with wiring hanging out, rust, no doors, and obviously not an ounce of life left in them? What will a junk man do with them? How much can he get for them?
The cases are usually steel, but there is aluminum and copper inside. Scrap metal value is in the neighborhood of a buck or two.
But, scavenge up enough of them, and you’ve got something going on the volume.
Unfortunately, it’s a fairly safe assumption that they guys aren’t handling the Freon properly.
The market for scrap is way up. Here’s a quote garnered online: “After its January 2003 low of $96, the streaky market for scrap steel rocketed prices as high as $255 in April 2004. It’s expected to stabilize around $175 as a worldwide commodity. Kausch said $150 a ton is an historic high price. Soaring demand for scrap worldwide and consumption of raw materials in China has been a key component in the higher scrap prices. Older scrap metal carries a very high price because of its higher carbon content.” Source here.
A couple of years ago there was no money in hauling this stuff off, which is why the city had to do it. Different story today.
In most areas, in order for the city to pick them up, your fridge must have the door off and must be labelled that a qualified professional has discharged the freon.
A few years back some new legislation involving usage of recycled caedboard sent the price of carboard to around $100 per ton for a while. We used to see peop;e in very nice trucks pulling trailers out picking up cardboard. A few of them claimed to be collecting 3-4 tons a day. Not a bad living for picking up boxes behind stores.
I guess this is one area where our horrific property taxes (typical for NJ) are paying off: we have two trash days per week, and they take just about anything, no questions asked, no extra costs. For larger stuff, they simply ask that you schedule a pickup. I have no complaints whatsoever about our Public Works department.
I work for a waste broker - yup, I get paid to talk trash
I work for a company that is the go-between for a lot of corporations and their locations individual trash and cardboard haulers. You see, we arrange for some store like Kmart/home depot/Lowes to have their massive amounts of cardboard hauled away, for which the hauler pays kmart a certain amount. [many locations will generate 20 BALES a week, at about 1 ton per bale …] so when someone steals the cardboard, the hauler gets pissed because they just paid a driver to take a truck out to the location [bale or cardboard ‘dumpster’] to pick up a product they can sell for a certain amount and make a profit after ‘rebating’ a certain amount of cash back to the generating store. The store is pissed because now they have to pay a ‘dry run’ fee, and not get the cash rebate, and we are pissed off becaus eit was a big waste of time, and now the hauler is pissed at us, and the location is pissed at us for somebody stealing out of their bins.
By the way, the bin is on PRIVATE property, and it is STEALING unless you go inside and ask if you can remove the cardboard. There is a REASON the enclosures and containers are frequently locked … and the area posted no trespassing/employee only. You know how many calls I get in a day to get locks replaced :mad:
