WWTBAM Bored

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2016/05/1 ... h-mpls-air

I love this.

Longstanding controversy over a metals recycling facility in Minneapolis.

Money quote>>"The Sierra Club has long opposed the metal shredder." <<<<

OK, let me get this straight-Sierra Club and urban liberals in Minneapolis are huge fans of recycling-except when it is actually done?

Scrap metal recycling is an inherently messy process. What would the Sierra Club recommend as a means of processing scrap metal?

I get to haul a load of scrap metal to one of Northern's satellite collection points today. We cleaned out (and burned) an old small, decrepit garage in the yard. We had stored a lot of old metal thingies in there over the years. This is one of my favorite jobs-I absolutely love going there.

Spock wrote:Scrap metal recycling is an inherently messy process. What would the Sierra Club recommend as a means of processing scrap metal?

I more or less agree with you philosophically. I have little patience for people who say, "Don't solve the problem that way" unless they're willing to suggest an alternative solution. --Bob

Bob78164 wrote:

Spock wrote:Scrap metal recycling is an inherently messy process. What would the Sierra Club recommend as a means of processing scrap metal?

I more or less agree with you philosophically. I have little patience for people who say, "Don't solve the problem that way" unless they're willing to suggest an alternative solution. --Bob

Or "Don't solve the problem in my backyard." Lots of examples here, Section 8 housing for one. Mental Hospitals for two. Halfway houses for three.

Trip wasn't much fun from a profit perspective, but I love seeing the huge scrap metal mountain there. It was larger a couple of years ago and I never thought it would disappear-but a few months ago-it was almost gone-Now they are accumulating again.

Scrap metal price was $60 a ton. This is probably a pretty average or good price historically, but it was about $300 bucks during the commodity boom a few years back. I had about 1800 pounds. We are sitting on most of our scrap for a possible future price run up.

We save as much as possible in copper and aluminum. Usually when I sell it I put the money into a 'lunch fund' so me and my crew can eat out.

You get so little for steel that I just let it accumulate behind one of my sheds and then load up 1,500 or pounds into a trailer. In 20 years I've done this twice. Don't get much, maybe $100 to $200 IIRC. On the other hand, I've gotten over $300 for a large container of copper wire.

We catch some flak from neighbors at projects and especially when we did the TV shows because we often opt to do a faster demolition and throw 'good' things away. The thing is, nobody who gripes about us not recycling is willing to pay the extra costs to carefully save stuff. Nobody.

I second all y'all who object to people who don't like the way you do it but aren't willing to step up and implement their own solution.

I saw something there once that would break Jaybee's heart. I know it did for every body that saw it.

There were 8 brand-new Bobcat skid steers consigned to the junk yard. They were test cases or something by a regulatory agency or something and there was nothing wrong with them but they were not to be used-they were to be junked and there was a distinct chain of evidence that had to followed during the junking process.

Spock wrote:I saw something there once that would break Jaybee's heart. I know it did for every body that saw it.

There were 8 brand-new Bobcat skid steers consigned to the junk yard. They were test cases or something by a regulatory agency or something and there was nothing wrong with them but they were not to be used-they were to be junked and there was a distinct chain of evidence that had to followed during the junking process.

That reminds me of what we did at Pizza Hut when I worked at corporate. When new ovens were purchased for stores, the old ones, for the most part perfectly working but not at standard for the current products, were taken out, had holes drilled in them, then sold to scrap dealers. The reason holes were drilled in them was to make them unusable and un-repairable for making pizzas. Seemed like a waste but the largest startup cost for a pizza place is it's equipment and Pizza Huts biggest competitor(s) is the Mom & Pop pizza shop. So the intent was to not facilitate the creation of new competition by lessening the barriers to entry into the market (i.e. providing a source for cheap used equipment). Makes sense.