| Sunday, July 5, 2009 | | | | the local office, told them of my intentions and |
| Gold from Electronic, Telecommunication & | | | | they gave me a key to a repeater station and |
| Computer Scrap Part 2 | | | | told me to take notes, samples, talk to workers - |
| RecyclingSecrets.comby Michael Meuser | | | | in short do whatever it took to make a |
| This is the 2nd in an ongoing series of articles | | | | reasonable bid that I could live with. |
| about my experience in the electronic salvage, | | | | I headed to Nevada with my very used dodge |
| recycling and gold recovery business. At first, I | | | | van. I brought back samples of microwave tubing |
| was going to write this up as an ebook and sell it, | | | | (beautiful pure copper rectangular tubing with |
| but I decided - given the tough economic times | | | | brass flanges), large batteries for their backup |
| we all face - to give it away in installments. New | | | | power, gold plated attentuators, connectors and |
| installments, resources, how-to articles and news | | | | the like and many many photos of gigantic steel |
| can be found at | | | | racks, radios racks of extruded aluminum, etc. |
| In my last post I began the story of how I got | | | | etc. |
| into the electronics, telecommunications and | | | | Turns out that the company just wanted a flat |
| computer recycling / gold recovery business. I'll tell | | | | per pound bid for everything but the batteries |
| you a bit more about it here. | | | | and then a separate bid for the batteries. |
| This seeming very small "tip" I got from the | | | | Batteries at the time were very low in value and, |
| telecommunication workers turned out to be a | | | | in fact, becoming hard to find anyone who would |
| virtual gold mine for me and my family. | | | | take them for scrap at all. I asked if I could just |
| Up until the time I met these guys, all of their | | | | bid on everything else and leave the batteries |
| scrap from upgrades and repairs to | | | | behind and was told no - it was all or nothing. |
| telecommunication microwave repeater stations in | | | | I was also told that I would probably be the only |
| Nevada went into the local landfills. But, because | | | | contractor to bid - they clearly were not |
| of the upgrade across the state from tube type | | | | interested in the revenue, they just wanted the |
| repeater radios to solid state, the amount of | | | | stuff out of there. |
| scrap was just too much to handle in this manner. | | | | I bid only 1/4 cent per pound on the batteries and |
| They told me that they thought the scrap was | | | | just a few cents on the rest. I was awarded the |
| going up for bid and that I should contact the local | | | | contract. I still remember the local office guy |
| office about it. I first, though, wanted to know | | | | saying, "are you sure you can handle this?" and |
| what it was that I was bidding on. So, I went to | | | | me saying, "sure, no problem at all. |