Crazy Eddy walked into my store last week and took a look at my recycling pile. “I bet you can make a pretty penny on that scrap.” Like I do with everyone who gets a gleam in their eyes, I took an old computer and put it on the desk. I gave Crazy Eddy a piece by piece tour of the scrap value of an old computer.
Because of the nature of our business we seem to get a lot of people who seem to think there’s gold in them there hills. Well, at least in our scrap anyways. I guess for the right person making money on scrap is a possibility, but it’s definitely not the norm. There’s simply not a ton of money for the amount of labor and space the scrap takes up.
Everyone sees gold and it’s true, there’s plenty of gold in old computers. Processors, memory and motherboards each have a fair amount of gold scrap. Extracting the gold at home is not for those who enjoy their fingers and eyes. It takes gallons of very toxic acids to extract a tiny bit of gold from each computer. In my book it’s not worth the risk.
Copper is probably the next biggest reason people want to get their hands on old computers. Last time I checked recyclers were paying $0.67 per pound for wire. There is a fair amount of copper in most computers. Some heatsinks have a copper core, circuit boards sometimes have a coil of copper called a choke. Finally, most of the wires are made of copper.
Almost all modern computers have a decent amount of aluminum. Heatsinks, again, are mostly aluminum which could account for up to one pound of a computer’s weight. Aluminum is also being used more frequently for aesthetic reasons. At roughly $0.43 per pound of aluminum it doesn’t take much to make a few bucks.
Every computer has massive amounts of steel found mostly in the case. Problem is, the steel is really cheap. Because the steel is the lowest grade most recycling yards are currently paying around $0.03 per pound. Cases take up a huge volume so storing and transporting them becomes a huge logistics issue.
There’s a bunch of other stuff in a computer as well as all the precious metals. Ferrite is one of the materials that has almost zero value. Plastic of course is pretty worthless. You’d never think it, but there’s a ton of pot metals that also have zero value. Pot metals are basically scraps of all sorts of different metals that are melted together.
If you were thinking cashing in your whole computer might have more value, think again. Recyclers are currently paying around $0.06 per pound for intact PCs. That’s a complete tower including all the guts. Recyclers are smart people so they’re probably dismantling them and separating the valuable materials.
Years ago I loaded my truck with computers and made a trek to the nearest recycler. At my store I made a grid and let my employees guess how much scrap we had accumulated in dollars. Each guess was well over $200.00 which would have made a nice payout to the winner of our interoffice bet. But when I came back with a little over $30.00 none of the guys were too happy including me. Between spending $40.00 in gas and having a blowout, I figured I lost about $100.00 that day.
(Jeromy Patriquin is the President of Laptop & Computer Repair, Inc. located at 509 Main St. in Gardner. You can call him at (978) 919-8059 or visit www.LocalComputerWiz.com.)