Making a Living on Craigslist.Com Part 2

They call themselves "Junkers", "Scrappers", "Metal Heads", "Recyclers", "Pirates", "Free-list Profiteers", "Pillagers", and a host of other pseudonyms depending on what major metropolitan area you are in. Make no mistake, however, if you are in a major metropolitan area, they are there.

I'm talking about the craigslist.com crowd that makes their living, or at least supplements their living by recycling the recyclable materials that are listed for "Free" in the "Free" Section of craigslist.com.

If you are familiar with the "Free" section of craigslist.com, you may have read some of the headlines for items posted there and asked yourself what anyone would possibly want to do with a broken 9 foot satellite dish, or the siding from a 1967 travel trailer, or 150 used apartment water heaters. The answer is simple. Aside from assorted artists and eccentric inventor types, these ads are responded to by the huge number of recyclers across the nation, and around the world who literally race and compete with each other for the pickup rights to such bountiful harvests.

And bountiful they are, indeed. For instance, any scrapper lucky enough to come across the giveaway of 150 used hot water heaters would be looking at being able to sell the heating elements which are made of copper for as much as $2.50 per pound. Each tank can have as much as 2-3 pounds of this copper. Brass fittings might sell for as much as $1.60 per pound and each tank might contain one half pound or so. Then there is the aluminum conduit that each tank might have in quantities of as much as 2 pounds at $.48 per pound, and a quarter of a pound of copper insulated wire at $1.45 per pound. Finally there is the tank itself, made of steel that scraps for perhaps $130 per ton.

If each tank is worth as little as $2.00, or as much as $6.00, it is not hard to see why the practices of these service providers has become somewhat cutthroat in some cases, reprehensible and absolutely without mercy in many others.

Right along with the ads that are specifically directed at the scrappers, are usually to be found a noticeable number of ads posted directly against these opportunists, and asking for a brief essay or explanation of how the recipient intends to use the item being given away.

Where do these marauders sell the metal, paper, batteries, etc., that they manage to scoop-up? They sell the stuff at one of the many scrap yards located in the industrial districts of most major cities and open, to one degree or another, to the general public. These yards have huge scales and expert sorters who buy the goods without regard to anything except for their Ferrous (containing Iron), or non-ferrous (containing no Iron) quality. Once that is determined, the scrap yard usually is set up to pay the scrapper immediately in cash or by a check drawn on a local bank.