Greetings,

I have miles of old copper wire. I have always thrown it away in the
past. What is the proper procedure for recycling it? Is recycling
worth it?

Thank you for your time and energy,
William

" wrote in message
oups.com...
Greetings,

I have miles of old copper wire. I have always thrown it away in the
past. What is the proper procedure for recycling it? Is recycling
worth it?

Thank you for your time and energy,
William


Prices vary as a commodity, but yes, scrap dealer will buy it. Worth much
more if you remove the insulation.

" wrote:

Greetings,

I have miles of old copper wire. I have always thrown it away in the
past. What is the proper procedure for recycling it? Is recycling
worth it?

Thank you for your time and energy,
William

Depends on the local recylers/used-metal dealers as to whether there's
any real market or not--also what kind of wire makes a big difference.
If it's large diameter cable, it'll be fairly valuable while Romex may
be nearly worthless as is.

"I have miles of old copper wire. I have always thrown it away in the
past. What is the proper procedure for recycling it? Is recycling
worth it? "

LOL We have hoodlums out ripping copper wire off utility services and
stripping copper pipe from unoccupied buildings. Gee, do you think the
local scrap yard might pay for it?

Edwin Pawlowski wrote:
" wrote in message
oups.com...
Greetings,

I have miles of old copper wire. I have always thrown it away in the
past. What is the proper procedure for recycling it? Is recycling
worth it?

Thank you for your time and energy,
William


Prices vary as a commodity, but yes, scrap dealer will buy it. Worth much
more if you remove the insulation.

Greetings,

What is the proper procedure for removing the insulation? Can you burn
it off in a barrel in the back yard? Do you need to add other
ingredients to support combustion? Do you need to wash it clean before
turning it in?

Thanks,
William

wrote:
"I have miles of old copper wire. I have always thrown it away in the
past. What is the proper procedure for recycling it? Is recycling
worth it? "

LOL We have hoodlums out ripping copper wire off utility services and
stripping copper pipe from unoccupied buildings. Gee, do you think the
local scrap yard might pay for it?

Greetings,

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.

William

What is the proper procedure for removing the insulation? Can you burn
it off in a barrel in the back yard? Do you need to add other
ingredients to support combustion? Do you need to wash it clean before
turning it in?

Thanks,
William

I worked a lot of construction when I was young and tried to collect
the scrap off the job sites for recycling, but it was hard to come by
as most of the electricians kept it for themselves. Many of the
electricians I worked with used to burn the insulation off.


Matt

Duane Bozarth wrote:

" wrote:

Greetings,

I have miles of old copper wire. I have always thrown it away in the
past. What is the proper procedure for recycling it? Is recycling
worth it?

Thank you for your time and energy,
William

Depends on the local recylers/used-metal dealers as to whether there's
any real market or not--also what kind of wire makes a big difference.
If it's large diameter cable, it'll be fairly valuable while Romex may
be nearly worthless as is.

Not that the copper isn't valuable, just there may be no market locally
for it as it is a bulky material that is a pita to handle/process so the
collection and transportation costs can make it such that the local
scrap dealer may not want to mess w/ it...

In this area there are literally miles of old oilfield cable from 7/8"
to 1-1/2" w/ a major fraction being 1". This isn't worth hauling to
the recyclers unless it's cut to lengths of 30" or less so the drilling
companies don't bother as the labor/effort for them is more than the
return. There have been a couple of guys who built an automated cutter
system who were reclaiming it, but even w/ no charge for the material
they seem to have given up the enterprise...the problem is bulky
material is just not very valuable as recycle input unfortunately.

For an individual it may be a little spending money now and then if you
have the time/inclination to mess w/ it. Seems a waste, granted...

About six month ago I got $1.10 a pound for copper pipe clean no solider on
ends.If they see one piece with solider they call it all dirty. Also check
some places were paying as low as $.60. They probably take to the place
paying $1.10. I have heard on some jobs when they installed the copper they
sprayed it black. they will cut it out of the walls. Last job I was on 3" k
grew legs and walked.
" wrote in message
oups.com...
Greetings,

I have miles of old copper wire. I have always thrown it away in the
past. What is the proper procedure for recycling it? Is recycling
worth it?

Thank you for your time and energy,
William

Why not start your own cable TV company?

I'd be curious to see if any of those electricians are still alive or died
at a young age. Burning off the insulation emits some very toxic chem's
and is not recommended.
Cheers,
cc

"MattMika" wrote in message
...
What is the proper procedure for removing the insulation? Can you burn
it off in a barrel in the back yard? Do you need to add other
ingredients to support combustion? Do you need to wash it clean before
turning it in?

Thanks,
William

I worked a lot of construction when I was young and tried to collect
the scrap off the job sites for recycling, but it was hard to come by
as most of the electricians kept it for themselves. Many of the
electricians I worked with used to burn the insulation off.


Matt

In article .com,
" wrote:

Edwin Pawlowski wrote:
" wrote in message
oups.com...
Greetings,

I have miles of old copper wire. I have always thrown it away in the
past. What is the proper procedure for recycling it? Is recycling
worth it?

Thank you for your time and energy,
William


Prices vary as a commodity, but yes, scrap dealer will buy it. Worth much
more if you remove the insulation.

Greetings,

What is the proper procedure for removing the insulation? Can you burn
it off in a barrel in the back yard? Do you need to add other
ingredients to support combustion? Do you need to wash it clean before
turning it in?

Burning it off is a bad idea. My Dad used to do that in our back yard
when I was a kid back in the 60s. Kinda frowned upon right now. You'll
have the FD down on you faster than you can say "EPA."

You can recycle the stuff as is or, if you really have "miles" of it,
you can invest in your own bulk wire stripping equipment, which all of
the scrap metal recyclers already own. The difference in scrap value
might be enough to justify the investment.

-Frank

--
fwarner1-at-franksknives-dot-com
Here's some of my work:
http://www.franksknives.com/

" wrote in message
oups.com...

Edwin Pawlowski wrote:
" wrote in message
oups.com...
Greetings,

I have miles of old copper wire. I have always thrown it away in the
past. What is the proper procedure for recycling it? Is recycling
worth it?

Thank you for your time and energy,
William


Prices vary as a commodity, but yes, scrap dealer will buy it. Worth much
more if you remove the insulation.

Greetings,

What is the proper procedure for removing the insulation? Can you burn
it off in a barrel in the back yard? Do you need to add other
ingredients to support combustion? Do you need to wash it clean before
turning it in?

Thanks,
William


Could probably send it through a chipper like machine and seperate the
copper from the insulation once it is all tiny chunks. THis is how they
recover precious metals from electronic assemblies. (gold from IC chips and
PC boards)

With the insulation on, the recycler will take it but not for much money if
any.

" wrote in message
oups.com...
Greetings,

I have miles of old copper wire. I have always thrown it away in the
past. What is the proper procedure for recycling it? Is recycling
worth it?

Thank you for your time and energy,
William


Call around. If you got "miles" of it, I am sure you can find a scrap
dealer that would buy it. They may even pick it up.

You will probably get more if you take it in to them, and shop around
because for that much, a nickel a pound can add up to a Franklin real fast.

Copper is a pretty good commodity.

Steve

SteveB wrote:

....
Call around. If you got "miles" of it, I am sure you can find a scrap
dealer that would buy it. They may even pick it up.

Not likely unless he's got at least a semi-load full, and then still not
likely if it's still insulated...

You will probably get more if you take it in to them, and shop around
because for that much, a nickel a pound can add up to a Franklin real fast.

Copper is a pretty good commodity.

But if you try you'll find that small gauge insulated wire isn't much of
one compared to bulk copper...

Duane Bozarth wrote:
SteveB wrote:

...
Call around. If you got "miles" of it, I am sure you can find a scrap
dealer that would buy it. They may even pick it up.

Not likely unless he's got at least a semi-load full, and then still not
likely if it's still insulated...

You will probably get more if you take it in to them, and shop around
because for that much, a nickel a pound can add up to a Franklin real fast.

Copper is a pretty good commodity.

But if you try you'll find that small gauge insulated wire isn't much of
one compared to bulk copper...

Greetings,

I looked at it 2 ways:

A mile of 14-2 is only about $600.00 brand new from the store. If the
recycling center pays 10% of new value (*a made up number, not even a
guesstimate) and I have 3 miles of romex wire (counting 3 miles of knob
and tube as 1 mile or romex) I am only looking at $180.00

I estimate the weight of the copper at 225 lb (3 miles*3
conductors*4110 cmils/conductor @ 557 pound / (ft^3) for cu) -- or $250
@ 1.10/lb if I burned and washed it and much less if I didn't. This
seems like a lot of work and I have kept it around for a long time to
accumulate this much. If I had done these calculations a year back I
never would have held on to the wire. Maybe I miscalculated somewhere?

I will call up the recycling center in the next few days and see what
they pay. I might hold off on taking it in until I can burn it as it
sounds like this will significantly increase its value. The chopping /
wire stripping equipment would have to be VERY cheap to make it worth
my while.

Thank you all very much for your input,
William

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.

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.

" wrote:
....
A mile of 14-2 is only about $600.00 brand new from the store. If the
recycling center pays 10% of new value (*a made up number, not even a
guesstimate) and I have 3 miles of romex wire (counting 3 miles of knob
and tube as 1 mile or romex) I am only looking at $180.00

I estimate the weight of the copper at 225 lb (3 miles*3
conductors*4110 cmils/conductor @ 557 pound / (ft^3) for cu) -- or $250
@ 1.10/lb if I burned and washed it and much less if I didn't. This
seems like a lot of work and I have kept it around for a long time to
accumulate this much. If I had done these calculations a year back I
never would have held on to the wire. Maybe I miscalculated somewhere?

I will call up the recycling center in the next few days and see what
they pay. I might hold off on taking it in until I can burn it as it
sounds like this will significantly increase its value. The chopping /
wire stripping equipment would have to be VERY cheap to make it worth
my while.

That's what I'd do...I really don't know what a salvage price for copper
is these days--I know even w/ higher steel prices it rarely even pays
the gas bill for the old truck to haul trash metal here, even if it is
pretty clean and high-density stuff (angle,etc., as opposed to sheet).

If you have as much as you say, copper might at least pay to haul it
off...

The recycler here ships the insulated wire in bulk to China where it
is hand stripped by slaves working for a bowl of rice per day. Ditto
for shot electric motors, "dirty" brass and the like. It's worth taking
if you are going to that part of town anyway. There are a couple of
Mexican scrap dealers here (southwestern U.S.) who will haul it away
for free, to just be rid of it with little hassle. If it is in good
shape, see if there is a local appliance repair or independant
electrician that can use it as is, trade for money or repairs.-Jitney

wrote:
Duane Bozarth wrote:
SteveB wrote:

...
Call around. If you got "miles" of it, I am sure you can find a scrap
dealer that would buy it. They may even pick it up.

Not likely unless he's got at least a semi-load full, and then still not
likely if it's still insulated...

You will probably get more if you take it in to them, and shop around
because for that much, a nickel a pound can add up to a Franklin real fast.

Copper is a pretty good commodity.

But if you try you'll find that small gauge insulated wire isn't much of
one compared to bulk copper...

Greetings,

I looked at it 2 ways:

A mile of 14-2 is only about $600.00 brand new from the store. If the
recycling center pays 10% of new value (*a made up number, not even a
guesstimate) and I have 3 miles of romex wire (counting 3 miles of knob
and tube as 1 mile or romex) I am only looking at $180.00

I estimate the weight of the copper at 225 lb (3 miles*3
conductors*4110 cmils/conductor @ 557 pound / (ft^3) for cu) -- or $250
@ 1.10/lb if I burned and washed it and much less if I didn't. This
seems like a lot of work and I have kept it around for a long time to
accumulate this much. If I had done these calculations a year back I
never would have held on to the wire. Maybe I miscalculated somewhere?

I will call up the recycling center in the next few days and see what
they pay. I might hold off on taking it in until I can burn it as it
sounds like this will significantly increase its value. The chopping /
wire stripping equipment would have to be VERY cheap to make it worth
my while.

Thank you all very much for your input,
William

Subject: burning the insulation off.
I have a full barrel of cleaned (i.e., no insulation) that I stripped
out of my house when rewireing. I did it by burning it off in my burn
barrel when burning trash. I wouldn't do it today as back then burn
barrels were legal, they aren't now and the insulation burns with
dense, stinky, very black smoke. It is a big fine to be caught just
using a burn barrel and even bigger trouble for burning hazardous waste
- insulation is classified as hazardous when burned.

Harry K

wrote:

The recycler here ships the insulated wire in bulk to China where it
is hand stripped by slaves working for a bowl of rice per day. Ditto
for shot electric motors, "dirty" brass and the like. It's worth taking
if you are going to that part of town anyway. There are a couple of
Mexican scrap dealers here (southwestern U.S.) who will haul it away
for free, to just be rid of it with little hassle. If it is in good
shape, see if there is a local appliance repair or independant
electrician that can use it as is, trade for money or repairs.-Jitney

I'm sure it has a lot to do w/ the size of the area and proximity to
other major population centers where there are facilities to process
it. Out here, it's so far to anywhere and a (relatively) sparsely
populated area, transportation costs and small volumes just make it
non-cost-effective, hence no real market.

Greetings,

I have a very small incinerator in one of my garages. Whenever I go I
load it up with old boots / shingles / etc. and light it up. I have
never had any problem with the law or told that I cannot use it. I
imagine I could transport the wire to the garage and burn the
insulation off a little at a time each trip. It is just rapidly
becoming a lot more trouble than it is worth. I also already have more
to burn in my little incenerator than I make trips to the garage. It's
a five unit and I am normally there once or twice per month to collect
rent. I maintain one of the units for my own use and store the trash
there along with low cost construction supplies (like old single pane
windows saved for the glass plates, removed doors that could be reused,
a couple thousand salvaged bricks, etc).

William

Why don't you have a garage sale there?-Jitney

On Wed, 17 Aug 2005 21:23:23 -0500, Duane Bozarth
wrote:

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.

The scrap yard I go to WILL take wire with insulation. The price may
be lower but they will take it. Many yards now have ways to remove
the insulation. Prices in early june for copper wire (no insulation)
were around 95 cents per pound.

J Kelly wrote:

On Wed, 17 Aug 2005 21:23:23 -0500, Duane Bozarth
wrote:

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.

The scrap yard I go to WILL take wire with insulation. The price may
be lower but they will take it. Many yards now have ways to remove
the insulation. Prices in early june for copper wire (no insulation)
were around 95 cents per pound.

They'll take it here but I meant "anything" in the sense of "anything
approaching enough to make it worth hauling in"....I'd be surprised if
the prices for small Romex/cloth insulated would be more than 1/4-th of
that.

wrote:
Why don't you have a garage sale there?-Jitney

Greetings,

New bricks are normally not cheaper than 3/$1.00. I will go through my
2000 bricks quickly as it takes 100-200 bricks to brick up a single
window. I doubt someone is going to come by my garage sale and give me
$650.00 for them. The same goes for most of the other things that I
store. I am losing rent on the storage area but I would need some
storage space no matter what. The incremental value of the additional
space doesn't cost me much.

Hope this helps,
William

wrote:
Why don't you have a garage sale there?-Jitney

Greetings,

New bricks are normally not cheaper than 3/$1.00. I will go through my
2000 bricks quickly as it takes 100-200 bricks to brick up a single
window. I doubt someone is going to come by my garage sale and give me
$650.00 for them. The same goes for most of the other things that I
store. I am losing rent on the storage area but I would need some
storage space no matter what. The incremental value of the additional
space doesn't cost me much.

Hope this helps,
William

wrote:
Greetings,

I have a very small incinerator in one of my garages. Whenever I go I
load it up with old boots / shingles / etc. and light it up. I have
never had any problem with the law or told that I cannot use it. I
imagine I could transport the wire to the garage and burn the
insulation off a little at a time each trip. It is just rapidly
becoming a lot more trouble than it is worth. I also already have more
to burn in my little incenerator than I make trips to the garage. It's
a five unit and I am normally there once or twice per month to collect
rent. I maintain one of the units for my own use and store the trash
there along with low cost construction supplies (like old single pane
windows saved for the glass plates, removed doors that could be reused,
a couple thousand salvaged bricks, etc).

William

Sounds like my shed . I did the same until I wised up and made a
trip to the dump with all the old wood single pane sash windows that I
had saved from 2 demo houses. I do still have some of the panes saving
them (and using them) for shaving handles in my splitting malls and
other uses. Hadn't used one pane of glass in 20 years. Won't mention
the other ?valuable? stuff I still have in there.

Harry K

On 17 Aug 2005 07:20:39 -0700, "
wrote:

Greetings,

I have miles of old copper wire. I have always thrown it away in the
past. What is the proper procedure for recycling it? Is recycling
worth it?

Thank you for your time and energy,
William

========================
Lol... My sons are HVAC installers...
Installing copper line sets setting units etc.... They save their
scraps and left overs and sell that scrap to a local "scrap" dealer
every year for Christmas money...

They pocket close to $1000.00 bucks a year... is it worth the effort?
thats up to you...

Bob G.

"Bob G." wrote:

On 17 Aug 2005 07:20:39 -0700, "
wrote:

Greetings,

I have miles of old copper wire. I have always thrown it away in the
past. What is the proper procedure for recycling it? Is recycling
worth it?

Thank you for your time and energy,
William

========================
Lol... My sons are HVAC installers...
Installing copper line sets setting units etc.... They save their
scraps and left overs and sell that scrap to a local "scrap" dealer
every year for Christmas money...

They pocket close to $1000.00 bucks a year... is it worth the effort?
thats up to you...

Solid copper will probably bring 5x that of small romex/insulated wire
at the scrap dealers plus it's a whole lot simpler to haul in that scrap
in a barrel or two as opposed to the whole truckload of old wire...

When I was out of work at the end of high school I worked out a deal with an electrician buddy. He'd bring home scrap wire, 14 AWG romex 00 or what
ever, and I'd strip it and run it down to the recycle yard. We split the proceeds and it got us gas and beer money for the weekends. If I was out of
work now I'd do it again . If he'd have just turned it in himself with the insulation on it he would have gotten less for it than the 50% he got by
me stripping it. Turned out to be a good deal all around.

On Fri, 19 Aug 2005 10:55:57 -0400, Bob G. wrote:

On 17 Aug 2005 07:20:39 -0700, "
wrote:

Greetings,

I have miles of old copper wire. I have always thrown it away in the
past. What is the proper procedure for recycling it? Is recycling
worth it?

Thank you for your time and energy,
William

========================
Lol... My sons are HVAC installers...
Installing copper line sets setting units etc.... They save their
scraps and left overs and sell that scrap to a local "scrap" dealer
every year for Christmas money...

They pocket close to $1000.00 bucks a year... is it worth the effort?
thats up to you...

Bob G.