Monies for nothing!

[polyfrog]

A while ago, it occurred to me that when installing a phone system, there is often a big ol' pile o' scrap wire. Which we regularly throw away. And that people steal wire from abandoned buildings to sell it for scrap

Comments

[bammba_m]

When I lived in CU I would take the cans from the recycle bins at my office. Two huge bags o' cans every week.

Wow, I forgot all about that. What were those things in CU? The gators something? Can-gator? Totally cool way to get some free cash. Good times.

[daev]

The Golden Goat?

[bammba_m]

Yes!! Why was I thinking gators? My memory, she is horrible.

Still, emptying those bags and then closing the bin was way cool.

[pheltzer]

My understanding is the price of copper has been going through the roof. Our wiring vendor has been raising their prices on Cat 5e and Cat 6 cabling due to the costs of copper going up.

[polyfrog]

Indeed. But "trending sharply upward" is not the same as "never decreasing."

And, too, how closely does the market for scrap copper track the price of copper? "roughly close" I'm sure, but do they fluctuate the same direction at the same time? Probably not. 35¢/lb for cat5 wire still in the jacket sounds like an amazingly high price, really. I'd estimate probably 1/3 of the weight is plastic...

I'm not going to sweat how many pennies he gives me per pound as long as it's "enough to make it worth my effort." If I start to feel dissatisfied I can start calling around to find the best price each time I have a load, but that starts to sound more like work.