Fred wrote:


The wire is mainly 12 and 14 awg Romex, knob and tube, or mineral
insulated. It is not high value copper pipe drain pipe or 250 kcmil SE
cable.

The copper in the Romex and K&T should be pretty good with minimum NEMA,
ANSI or some such standards. Even better (in terms of copper purity) than
copper pipes as it needed to meet some minimum conductivity standard. 12 AWG
Romex and 250 MCM copper should be about the same quality which means it has
the same current density about 1,000A per sq. in. - i.e., same purity unless
if I'm mistaken.

It's not that the copper isn't as high as much else, it's that the
recyclers won't pay anything owing to the insulation--the "value" here
is the salvage value.