It's a bit of an understatement to say that at the end of hard days at work on a hot Brisbane jobsite, the last thing you want to do is end up spending 30 minutes sorting through offcuts. The urge to simply dump all those bits of copper pipe, brass fittings and cable strippings into the general waste skip is very strong! However, if you're a sparky working on commercial fit-outs in Fortitude Valley, or a plumber roughing a townhouse in Chermside, then that pile is literally the trash can where you're dumping your money.
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As prices for materials and overheads continue to rise in South East Queensland, clever local tradespeople understand that it is not an afterthought to scrap metal. It is a secondary source of income. If you are aware of how the local yards will grade your materials, you can make your normal site clean-ups a big money earner for your business. All it takes is some clever tactics to avoid leaving money on the table — our 5-minute clean vs dirty sorting rule is a good place to start.
For Brisbane electricians, copper is your bread and butter! But if your nest of wires gets tangled and scattered at the local automotive tow yard, you're in for the get of your life. Insulated wire is graded very specifically by the scrap yard and is purchased based on an estimate of the amount of copper that can be recovered from the product. Bright Wire is sometimes called Millberry and is the absolute Holy Grail of electrical scrap. This is clean, unalloyed, uninsulated copper wire, totally free from any burning, soldering or heavy tarnish. It is the highest price per kg at any Brisbane weighbridge.
If you're removing old, thick gauge cables on a Rocklea site, taking a few minutes to apply a decent cable stripper to get rid of the PVC sheathing can double or triple your pay on that cable! If you don't have time to strip it, you'll still need to sort your insulated wire. Never use your thick three-phase power cords with thin Cat6 data cords or data links. Thicker cables are in a high yield range because of the high copper-to-plastic weight ratio, while data cables are typically plastic insulated and are in a low yield range. Use different buckets in your rear of the ute. If the yard operator must grade a mixed pile they will automatically give you the lowest common denominator rate.
If you are a plumber serving Brendale to Logan, your scope is a little wider but also very lucrative; with copper, brass, and stainless steel pipes. The main focus is on Copper Pipework, which can be divided into Domestic Clean (Number 1 Copper) and Domestic Dirty (Number 2 Copper). Number 1 Copper is copper pipes, tubing, and busbars that have no soldered joints, no paint, no brass fittings, and no excessive corrosion. Number 2 Copper includes pipes with solder joins or painted surfaces or attached brass fittings. This is a big difference in price.
One good idea for getting the most out of your plumbing scrap is to have a set of battery-powered pipe cutters in your scrap bin. Chop a few seconds off of a length of pipe, cutting the soldered joints and brass tees out of it. Discard the clean parts in your Number 1 barrel, the contaminated joints in your Number 2 barrel. This will make 90% of your pipe charge high quality.
Don't overlook these brass items as well, such as old brass taps, hot water valves and water meters. Very clean brass is highly desirable and has a very respectable weight to value ratio. As long as they are not plastic handles or rubber washers or steel brackets, just be sure to remove them before dropping them off, as clean brass always commands a higher premium than contaminated brass.
Job Site Logic: How To Store And Protect Your Stash-Scrap
Metal theft is a huge problem on job sites throughout South East Queensland. Copper prices are high and a neat heap of copper in an open tray or a skip is very vulnerable to the opportunist thief, particularly during long weekends or unsupervised night shifts.
Spend money on big, durable steel site boxes that can be pad-locked and securely chained to a structural point on site, to protect your profits. At home, and inside your van or lockbox, have an easy, colour coded bucket system, one for clean copper, one for insulated wire, one for brass and one for old lead acid back-up batteries and/or hot water anodes.
Don't leave your scrap on display. A loaded ute; use a heavy tonneau cover or locked canopy. If you park your car overnight (at night) in the neighborhood of a busy suburb, park your car in a secure garage or tight against a wall, so no one can mess with your tray. If you're going to store your materials, you should be storing them securely so that your hard working materials end up at the weighbridge and not on someone else's weekend.
The Weighbridge is an exciting moment to have a full load and take to a licensed scrap yard in Brisbane, you need to be ready for the weigh in process. In Queensland, the trading of scrap metal is completely banned if done anonymously, under the Queensland Second-hand Dealers and Pawnbrokers Act. This legislation was instituted to curb metal theft, and metal yards are very strict with it.
Roll-on the scales and be prepared with an acceptable photo ID (a Queensland Driver's License). The yard will keep a record of your information along with a description of your load. Also, if you are a registered business entity, please state your Australian Business Number. A professional scrap metal recycler will be able to set up a trade account for your business so that you can produce formal taxed invoices for your money-back returns, keeping your bookkeeper happy at tax time.
Knowledge About The Scrap Market
Lastly, know the cost process. Scrap values are linked to the worldwide indexes such as London Metal Exchange and change on a daily basis because of the exchange rate and the value of supply chains. Avoid driving around the town to find a yard that will give you a 5 cent difference per kilo, and go to a local and reputable yard with clear, digital crane scales and consistent trade rates. Having a great relationship with a reputable local scrap yard means you're assured of quick turnarounds, a fair grading and honest pay, time after time when clearing out your work vehicle.
Why Does The Scrap Market Fluctuate?
If you have ever seen the price of scrap copper rise twenty cents one day, and then drop twenty cents a week later, you have seen the price changes that can occur from one day to the next in the global commodities market. The laws of supply and demand form the basis of scrap prices, but metals are traded worldwide, and therefore are quite dependent on international geopolitical, energy, and shipping events.
A large-scale and serious event, such as a major weather catastrophe in a copper-producing nation such as Chile or a policy change in a nation regarding an export ban in the Democratic Republic of Congo can quickly halt the world's supply of raw, virgin copper. As raw ore supplies become limited, manufacturers around the world start to move towards using the recycled metals — the same demand driving South East Queensland's infrastructure drive — to continue manufacturing and thus increase the rate at which you're charged at your local Brisbane weighbridge! The opposite, however, is that when key markets such as China slow down, demand in the world falls off quickly and prices in the world take a hit.
On a domestic level, even factors such as fuel costs, exchange rates, etc., have a significant impact. International metal trades are completed in U.S. dollars, so metal yard prices can change 10 to 15 percent in a couple weeks depending on the strength of the Australian dollar. Also, if world prices for diesel increase, recyclers have to pay more to operate their cranes, shredders and export shipping fleet. Local yards may be adjusting their daily buying sheets in order to cover the increased costs of operations.
By keeping an eye on the bigger economic picture you will know when to run your yard for cash when prices are at their best. Sorting stainless steel offcuts out of the mix too? Check our steel and iron scrap pickup guide, or browse our full range of pickup services for every material your site produces.