[Closed] Scrappers in crap transit flatbeds scavenging streets

I think a washing machine is worth about a fiver as scrap so maybe a flatbed full of junk would get £50?
Rob some lead, copper, few houses and claim benefits and you've got yourself a tidy income. 😆

You wrote the wrong title - should have written "bigotted stereotype content"

I'm guessing you didn't grow up in the 60s or 70s. I remember dirty looking men with a flat trailer pulled by a horse coming round and asking for scrap.
Why think that they're scoping out your house to burgle first, rather than, they're fulfilling a useful public role by collecting recycling other people's waste?

I took some bits to the metal merchants yesterday.

Current rates are:

£2750/tonne copper/brass - so a fiver for some old plumbing junk
£600/tonne aluminium

"motors" were £400/t - so an old starter motor and alternator got me £5

Batteries are £440/t, so one large and one small one raised £16

Light Iron was £70/t

£38 for some stuff I had lying around - better than giving away to the council recycling tip 😉

You wrote the wrong title - should have written "bigotted stereotype content"

Oooooooooo, get you. When in our garden this summer I heard some of these salt of the earth types asking each other whether they thought the kids bikes in our friends yard opposite were locked. They soon went when I popped my head over the gate and they realised they'd been heard.

I'm guessing you didn't grow up in the 60s or 70s. I remember dirty looking men with a flat trailer pulled by a horse coming round and asking for scrap.

Theres still a few guys who regularly pass my office on the Bradford ring road on with this setup. But then parts of Bradford are still in a different century.

the people who collect scrap round here don't offer that good a service, rather than take the whole lot away they tend to strip it of the good bits then leave a chewed up appliance scattered about the path.

i still remember the boss getting a phone call from the neighbour asking if he was having roof work done - as there were some men who arrived in an unmarked transit tipper up on his roof - in the middle of the city in the middle of the day.

I grew up in the 80s. I remember the scrappers coming with a call for scrap metal. It was great. Knife sharpening too.

You wrote the wrong title - should have written "bigotted stereotype content"

Why think that they're scoping out your house to burgle first, rather than, they're fulfilling a useful public role by collecting recycling other people's waste?

Good deployment of the 'Inverse snobbery' card though. Based entirely on a lack of understanding of my background. Perhaps i'm considering a career change.

I'm guessing you didn't grow up in the 60s or 70s. I remember dirty looking men with a flat trailer pulled by a horse coming round and asking for scrap.

[img] [/img]

Were loads round our area, Cwmcarn area, before the waste carriers licences wre tightenedup/brought in.
Trannys are alot tidier and sign written now so most seem legit. always interesting seeing what's in the back though.
Can remeber when an old guys cycled round with a rotating sharping stone on front of his bike to do your knives. 😀 (I'm only 37 )

Our knife sharpener would do the rounds on a Sunday morning.
He had a proper bike with a hand powered sharpening stone on the back.
Rag and bone man was always exciting as his horse was at least 20 foot tall (or so it seemed to a 5 year old).

Still get the knife sharpening men in Madrid, scrappies are all old transit or similar though these days.

Next door town to ours has a large community of travellers. We get them coming round every couple of weeks, calling out "rag and bone!". Same flat bed, traders branding and numbers one the side, the same old guy driving. They don't seem to be up to anything nefarious . But I still make sure the garage is closed up before I take something out to them.

Just being sensibly cautious, not untrusting.

DaveyBoyWonder , i'm genuinely tickled by your response "ooooooh get you". You're not a politician are you? That's how they talk in PM Questions...

Certainly had a horse drawn rag and bone cart out till mid nineties up round My parents house, now uses a transit, still rings the same bell though.

We get them coming round every couple of weeks, calling out "rag and bone!"

I've not seen one in years, but growing up in a Lancashire cotton town in the late 70s and 80s the sound of a horse and cart clopping over the cobbles to the cry of "AG BOH!" it used to be a weekly occurrence.

It's quite lucrative, there was a program on Channel 4 not long back about scrap men and some are earning 60k+ a year.

There's a lot of money in scrap metal.

Why think that they're scoping out your house to burgle first, rather than, they're fulfilling a useful public role by collecting recycling other people's waste?

They kindly tried to recycle my Thule 4 bike carrier when I foolishly left it in my garden for 5 minutes before putting it in the shed - luckily a neighbour stopped them.

we had one come past a couple of months ago, regular car with a trailer, leaning out of the window shouting "raaaggyyy bow" as he passed by at little more than walking pace. I found it quite quaint

There certainly is a lot of money in scrap metal. The family who own what I presume is the UK's biggest merchant is in the Sunday Times top 100 rich list.

Radiator on a skip when I took the dog for her walk on Thursday morning, radiator gone when we went past same skip on Thursday evening. Leave it out and they will come.
Not sure how well the skip hire folk do with the remaining stuff to dispose?

Ours* just nick everything not nailed down.

*There's more than one, they get quite agitated when it's clear the other's been on 'their' patch. So it's possible the one that took the pile of copper piping from by my garrgae was a differnt one to the one that nicked the lead of the roof.

The fireplace shop next door leaves a sacrificial offering to the pikey gods and locks his skips to stop the contents being emptied out in the search for stuff and re-filled with other stuff.

I can't see how with current diesel prices crawling around all day in 2nd gear scoping stuff can be economically viable unless some taxes were being avoided. Red diesel?

We still get them, not as much as we used to but at least one a day. They are doing a service though.

£70/t is serious crap 😯

We see alot of them- really early morning (about 5-6am)- maybe to get to the stuff left out overnight before others do? I imagine the odd bike accidently left on your drive/front garden etc also gets accidently thrown in too.

In our offices the neighbours were relocating and had a skip out front. As soon as a heavy metal filling cabinet was launched in with 10mins there'd be van backed up and it being picked out... they must be like Whales...detecting sound through the air for miles......

It's quite lucrative, there was a program on Channel 4 not long back about scrap men and some are earning 60k+ a year.

There's a lot of money in scrap metal.

Yep, I know a couple of 'Scrap dealers' and both are pretty wealthy.

I can't see how with current diesel prices crawling around all day in 2nd gear scoping stuff can be economically viable unless some taxes were being avoided. Red diesel?

your local scrappie will probably have more diesel than he knows what to do with, red and normal: Probably a deal to be struck somewhere. My mate's dad runs a scrapyard, he hasn't paid for fuel in years...

I can't see how with current diesel prices crawling around all day in 2nd gear scoping stuff can be economically viable unless some taxes were being avoided.

I imagine alot of them also claim various benefits and this line of work doesn't have a trace as its all cash........

I was offered £30 by a chap for some scrap lead... i said no thanks and took it to the scrap metal merchant and boom £270 straight into my account... The chap was clearly out of touch on prices.. 😀 . dont see rag and bone men at home but plenty of chaps come to visit our site.. £1500 worth of still tools?... yours for £150 cash, no receipt (he did show me passport for some strange reason though).

We used to get hounded when we lived in Oldham, literally 5 or 6 would pass by 9am.

Since we moved its not been too bad but i had a call from the wife the other morning to say she had just found someone in the back garden asking if stuff was scrap. She told him politely to do one and got a mouthful back. Duely reported them to the police expecting nothing, only to get a call back shortly after to say they had found them and found the driver not to have a licence so impounded the flat back transit!

One less on the street for the time being

Put some thin sheet steel in the front garden, about 6sqm, after clearing out the garage a few weeks ago. Within 45min a guy driving past stopped and asked if he could take it, he was in a people carrier! it was folded up and in his boot and he was off in less than a minute.

I guess some of these scrappers dont spend much time actively searching and probably just do it on the way to/from other jobs. Makes sense to collect as much as you can and then sell it when youve got enough.

.....this line of work doesn't have a trace as its all cash........

Wrong.

They cannot be paid in cash nowadays as action on metal theft has changed the regs - must be paid by cheque or into B/Acc and photo ID has to be shown. Some sites are getting round this in some ways but it's still traceable. It has made a big difference so far.

ALso the permits waste sites have can now be revoked if the site has been convicted of handling stolen goods, so the site can lose their business if they don't do the proper checks.

Most of the scrappies driving around make a tidy living, their vans are generally pretty decent nowadays. And yes its true, they still do use horse and carts in Bradford, used to be my patch that area :shuddder:

At our last place we put the old bath outside , three minutes later it had gone.Thanks very much scrap man.

shouting "raaaggyyy bow" as he passed by at little more than walking pace

When I was growing up the rag & bone man shouted "bing".
Presumably he had srapped his bell.

DaveyBoyWonder , i'm genuinely tickled by your response "ooooooh get you". You're not a politician are you? That's how they talk in PM Questions...

I should have included a picture of a handbag but I couldn't be arsed. But since you thought my response was funny, here you go:

[img] [/img]

They cannot be paid in cash nowadays as action on metal theft has changed the regs - must be paid by cheque or into B/Acc and photo ID has to be shown. Some sites are getting round this in some ways but it's still traceable. It has made a big difference so far.

Could they give a daughter or cousins bank account?

must just be for dodgers.

i got 167 quid cash from a reputable scrappers in the city for an old boiler - a burst copper tank and a couple auld radiators.

he did want a copy of photo ID & proof of address from me to be held on file for the scrap.

Could they give a daughter or cousins bank account?

That'd fox the forensic accountants! Have you considered becoming a criminal mastermind?

I've actually joined the scheme at our local recycler where you have to submit your bank details and they give you a neat little card with a barcode, which enables them to credit your account. The whole process is painless and lucrative, especially if you happen to have some brass or copper plumbing stuff.

The local "collectors" perform a useful function and last weekend we left a knackered fridge outside hoping they would take it. It was there all week until yesterday when a bloke knocked and politely asked if he could take it away.

The issue with things like old fridges is that most of them take it away, strip the compressor out (as it's the valuable bit), release the refrigerant (which on old fridges can contain cfc's and be very harmful) and ditch the rest.
Stuff like that is why they are generally seen not to be a good thing!

That'd fox the forensic accountants! Have you considered becoming a criminal mastermind?

So lets say Mohammed Illocu Choceski is also know by two names, his nickname and his family name, his daughter is called Illocu Mohammed and his wife, cousins also a variation etc etc.

Which would a UK benefits fraud team chose to focus on first? Albert James or ^ if you have limited resources? Also one would claim language problems so a expensive interpretor would need to be added to the bill.

Cynical and maybee I'm wrong. 🙂

Well, you've lost me already so maybe you're on to something

Did I click on the "Cryptic junk email" thread by mistake? 🙂

No you clicked on Friday casual racism hour 8)

I've had a skip raided for metal by local Pikeys, they didn't ask, just saw them drive up and shove a load of metal stuff in the back of their van and drive off....

Well, you've lost me already so maybe you're on [s]to[/s] something

I've had a skip raided for metal by local Pikeys, they didn't ask, just saw them drive up and shove a load of metal stuff in the back of their van and drive off....

And thats a bad thing because?

You have more room in your skip to chuck stuff. They have saved some recyclable goods from going to landfill. Win/Win

We have a few that cruise our neighbourhood. Often leave stuff out, old frame, washing machine, general rubbish from the house. Saves me hiking it somewhere.

Me and neighbours/locals find it a useful service. They are polite and generally knock to make sure its cool to do it.

Basically can't tar everyone with the same brush, some are just entrepreneurial folk in a time where unemployment and low paid menial jobs is rife.

And thats a bad thing because?

Without asking it's theft.

However, I wasn't overly bothered in this particular case.

Well, you've lost me already so maybe you're on to something

I fart in your general direction

[img] [/img]

Could they give a daughter or cousins bank account?

What would be the point, so then they'd get done for handling stolen goods too and add money laundering to the list?

I've no idea how it's supposed to have any effect though, how does the scrap dealer know if that roll of lead came off a genuine demolition job, or my garrage roof?

They have saved some recyclable goods from going to landfill.

I'm always happy to leave anything metal out at that end of the drive and it goes and gets recycled without me having to do anything. If I've got a skip I'll always leave the metal till last and leave it on top. I've even had them knock on the door and ask if it's ok to take the metal out of the skip! While I'm sure plenty of them are crooks there's no shortage of crooks in every business.

was in the yeard yesterday.. 110 a tonne for light iron ( washing machines etc the staple of your scrappy.. the juice is in the detail.. stripping the motors from these items is where the real money is.. we strip out and seperate iron/ motors/ wire/ copper/brass and alloys from our boilers now making the 30 kilo boiler go from 3 quid to just under 30.

That fart took you two attempts - a third could have proved catastrophic.

The tatters and scrappers may make inconvinient things disappear for you but they are likely to be stripping any non-metallics from what you put at the end of your drive and hoying it in the nearest layby. They quite often hire a metal skip from a legit provider, through a semi legit business, tarmac/builder fill it with the stuff they pick up and get it weighed in as scrap from construction/ demolition. - One method of getting past the dealers gates - there are others.

but.....

ITS YOUR FING WASTE TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR IT AND TAKE IT TO THE TIP/LICENSED SCRAP YARD YOU LAZY B**S!

IIRC the reason the new laws were brought in was in part because of the number of train delays when the signal men came into work in the morning to find all the copper wiring between them and the signals had 'been scrapped' by persons unknown in the night...

Ah, the hours I spent as a kid stripping cables to separate plastic and wire for my (electrician) dad

You only a youngster then ninfan? Sometimes you talk like a grumpy old man 🙂

In my day we burnt the plastic off for my old man (not an electrician)

There is a forum all about it

http://scrapmetalforum.co.uk/phpbb3/index.php

Though some of them seem to just collect computer chips?

I hear theres a bloke that goes round collecting obsolete 29'er bicycles

Why go to the trouble of striping the plastic out of a fridge? Pull the motor for sure and weigh thet in. Then weigh in the fridge, complete with plastic, as all extra weight counts in the light iron category. :-). Weigh in a car at £150 a tonne and you would be daft to remove all the glass and interior first. In fact, make sure the carpet are wet, the fuel tank is full of water, and all you old junk is in the footwells. Not that anyone would ever do such a thing of course.

They cannot be paid in cash nowadays as action on metal theft has changed the regs - must be paid by cheque or into B/Acc and photo ID has to be shown. Some sites are getting round this in some ways but it's still traceable. It has made a big difference so far.

Well... this morning I was paid cash. No ID of any sort asked for.

Generally yards are getting better, elsewhere I've been paid into the bank and needed photo ID, but you can see how its going to have to be an effort to regulate them. They don't make their money from buying scrap they make if from margin between what they buy it for and can sell it for. But they can't sell what they don't have so if theres a way a blind eye can be turned it will be.

And thats a bad thing because?
Without asking it's theft.
However, I wasn't overly bothered in this particular case.

It is a big issue because as well as the fact its technically theft, they can make a mess, disturb the contents of the skip so you have to reload it, whack your neighbours car with it, damage your property, and they are trespassing. None of this is acceptable in my book. Also I believe if they do subsequently dump part of something you can get sung for the cleanup cost of its traced back to you.

We do put stuff out for the flat bedders occasionally at the end of the drive but having had skips on our drive ransacked by them too and experienced some of the issues above I have to say that I really resent that behaviour.

They cannot be paid in cash nowadays as action on metal theft has changed the regs - must be paid by cheque or into B/Acc and photo ID has to be shown. Some sites are getting round this in some ways but it's still traceable. It has made a big difference so far.

The bane of my site. I practically had a guy begging for some metal the other day. I have a very nasty looking "friend" who was visiting when said man called in again. He was asked politely to **** off. I use one lad regularly who pays me cash, we work out a deal. Copper and the more valuable stuff goes to a proper weigh in. I can still get cash but it's usually at lower price.

all the aerial riggers and satellite engineers use our skip at work. old aerials, cable, sat dishes get thrown in.
a local lad comes twice a week, climbs in and comes out with a few sacks full of stuff. it must be worth something. it seems like a hard way for a lazy workshy scumbag theiving druggie (stw standard description) to earn a living.

hats off to him imho........ 😀

Whats his name Ton, I probably know him. 😉

Tungsten carbide is £11 a kilo ATM! (not that there's much of that laid by the roadside)

A couple of years ago I project managed setting up an office furniture reuse and recyling social enterprise. We used to get loads of office furniture and filing cabinets etc. from firms relocating, gone bust, or upgrading. Stuff that wasn't resaleable was split into its constituent parts and we had a huge skip in the yard supplied to us by the local scrapyard. A couple of times we caught some guys in the skip trying to get the metal into their transit. When told politely to "F off" they got really pissy despite knowing that they were stealing from a charity. One lot even had the temerity to return the following day.

I live on a main road with Traffic Lights right outside my door.

Earlier this Year, I got a New Washing Machine and dragged the old one outside and left it on the corner in case a scrap van came past.

Went back in, locked the Gate, went to the shop and came back literally 3 mins later and it had gone.

I'm not arguing as I wanted rid. They are constantly going up and down our road.

I scrapped a couple of cars as well back in the Summer and, when I had the gates open they were constantly pulling up asking if they could take them away despite me explaining I had already arranged collection from another firm.

Power station next door's being demolished at the moment.
The (non contracted) scrappers are round it like flys on sh*t, trying to work out how to get in.

Whether you view it as a service or not is up to you, really.

Due to crackdowns on electrical recycling things like appliances are now generally gutted for compressor etc where they stand, releasing any nasty refrigerants etc and leaving a wrecked (but lighter) pos that is going to be harder to get rid of now the juicy bits are gone.

It's true that this approach is a minor improvement over fly tipping the remains after stripping it.

The amount of items belonging to me like freshly cleaned and prepped car subframes in back gardens that have accidentally been recycled by 'scrapmen', I'm not especially keen on them although I'm sure it's like any trade and there are plenty of good guys...

Find the more desperate ones are good for off-loading fencing wire. When we tow it in to the yards they are usually pretty reluctant as it tangles in the machinery. If we've got some cattle grids to sandwich it they are usually well happy though.
Have rammed fencing wire into an old oil tank that was dumped on site, cut the side out and kept crushing in the wire - nice weighty lump.

Having said that the big boys in the industry have state of the art fridge and electrical recycling plants.

I got a feeling the price of scrap is about to sky-rocket. Have seen a few scrap men out lately, where I haven't seen any for years. The last time we seemed to have so many about, scrap was not that valuable, but within about 3 months of giving away about 6 old cars and as many old trailers/muckspreaders/balers etc for nothing (had a big clear out when I took the farm over from my dad), the price of scrap had soared to an all time high. Next time I saw the scrap man he had a brand new car and a brand new transit!

My advice, if you have a load of scrap, hang on to it a for a few months and see what happens.

I was wondering about an old Marin alu frame I have sitting in the shed. Its cracked on the headtube so no good to me, Would it be worth a trip down the scrap yard ? Also have three halfords specials rusting away in the garden, Cant be worth much can they ?

I got a feeling the price of scrap is about to sky-rocket.

Not whilst we have a suppressed oil price!

I was wondering about an old Marin alu frame I have sitting in the shed. Its cracked on the headtube so no good to me, Would it be worth a trip down the scrap yard ?

about 60p/kilo - so about 90p

Also have three halfords specials rusting away in the garden, Cant be worth much can they ?

When scrapping a car fill the boot with rocks then beat crap out of the lock.
Well it worked when we were kids.

Also have three halfords specials rusting away in the garden, Cant be worth much can they ?

about 8p/kilo

Although thinking about that again, apart from the frame there will still be plenty of alu on a cheap bike, but you'd need to go to the trouble of separating it from all the steel/plastic/rubber. The rims (but not the spokes or nipples), hub-shells (but not the axel and bearings etc), crank arms collectively probably add up to more alu than your frame. But get anything other than alu in with it an you'll only be given the steel price

One of my clients is a large scrap metal yard/recycling facility.
The guys told me they now check very carefully whats in the travelling gentlefolk's load as they have been half filling the tippers with concrete & covering it up with metal before driving onto the weighbridge & tipping in the yard!

When I was renovating my house a couple of years ago we had half a dozen or so offer to take stuff for free. A few just tried wandering round the back garden uninvited (completely ignoring the front door and door bell) luckily either myself or one of the guys I had working there spotted them before the found the stockpile round the back. One of the builders said it wasn't uncommon for scrap to go missing over night if sites were unoccupied.

For all the scrap we collected from a 3 bed semi I got just over £1000.
Mix of copper (pipe and wire), lead, brass, aluminium and steel. It was well worth splitting the clean and dirty copper (cutting soldered joints etc) added 30% to the price, I didn't bother stripping the wire though, I tried it but simply took too long to do by hand to be worth it.

So yes you can make good money from it, and yes some but certainly not all are a bit dodgy! (as there are in any walk of life, from politicians and bankers to scrap metal men) no idea if any of the ones that asked at my place were dodgy or not. I did stay on site and did however see a couple of slow evening drive bys by the same vans, they didn't stop when they saw me though......

There have been a number of manhole covers which have gone missing around the local town just recently which has been in the local press.

A woman who works in our staff canteen drives a nice new Range Rover with a scrap metal business sign in the rear window, I assume her husbands, so money is definitely there to be made.