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I live in an apartment. Thus I have no yard, garage, or out-building to pile any scrap in. I have basically not even been saving cans because by myself I go through so few that it would probably take over a year of accumulating to even make the gas to the scrap-yard worthwhile. Anyone else in this situation or have ideas on how I could store or find some scrap given my limitations? I was thinking some kind of plastic container that sealed and could be stored discretely, or a group of such containers for different metals.

I don't think that the totes would pay for themselves, I'm using a old plastic trash can looks ok but has holes in bottom to hold the aluminum I get from free boxes but if you have a deck you could store stuff on it

I would get the plastic containers. Make sure you flatten your alum cans and do the same with any steel cans. Can you store them outside? Also apartments have lots of scrap to give up. Vaccume cleaners, bed frames etc.

I lived in an apt and was into scrapping. It is amazing how much metal you can fit into a small space. I had to limited my findings to brass, copper, aluminum, and computers. the brass and copper I would keep in kitty litter pails. The computers I would stack all the way to the ceiling. Wire I would just thorw in trash bags and pile it up on the closet floor. I had a spare room, so I still had quite a bit of space, but still involved allot of cutting and carrying up steps. The money I made helped with the downpayment on a house!

davycoppitt wrote:I had to limited my findings to brass, copper, aluminum, and computers. the brass and copper I would keep in kitty litter pails. The computers I would stack all the way to the ceiling. Wire I would just thorw in trash bags and pile it up on the closet floor.

I still live in an apt. Sold my house 6 years ago because it was not in the right school district. Moved to an apt and still there.

Davy your situation sounds like mine. Only i tear down the computers for boards, RAM and CPU. The rest gets tossed in the dumpster much later in the evening In my 2nd floor apt I have a balcony 5 feet wide by the width of my apt. The wife gets the left for gardening and I get the right for my open air covered workshop. I have converted a 4 drawer dresser (holds all my tools) to a workbench by adding an 18" x 36" shelf and backdrop. From the parking area people can see me doing something but the backdrop (also 18 x 36) hides it all. I also have another identical dresser next to it so I have about 6' of workspace. In the extra dresser cell phones go in the top drawer (which is now crammed full) brass, copper and AU go in the other. When they get full it is off the the recycler. I also have a big box I am filling with wire.

Since I bought a house, I moved into steel and other things. Looking to get into cars pretty soon. I would have loved to stay in the apt, but I couldn't handle the neighbors. I think what cyberdan does would be a good way to go at it. You could also try to concentrate on sterling, scrap gold, and gold filled.

Why don't you just do lawyering? Why would you fart around with scrapping when you have that heavy education?

I know many apartment-dwelling scrappers. They usually keep their bulkier stuff in their pickup or van until they have enough to make a trip to the yard.

As others have suggested, non-ferrous metals don't take up much space. You can use a few cardboard boxes or totes in a closet and save for up for months at a time. The only issue is everyone else is also looking for the better metals, so they're harder to get.

Near me if you store a pile of junk metal outside within site of the street it will get stolen, so definitely keep it locked up or well hidden.

Thogey wrote:Why don't you just do lawyering? Why would you fart around with scrapping when you have that heavy education?

Eh, just the same reason I don't spend pre-82 pennies. I hate throwing away metal after reading this forum.

I went ahead and got a big plastic container on sale for $4 - it will sit out on the porch for crushed alum cans and steel cans.

You don't like doing law, do you?

I understand, I have almost as much education as you BS, MSA.

I do yard work (or watch others do work) and scrap. I hate the administrating part of my business.

Buying low and selling high. Pure capitalism.

Yeah I am probably not going to use my law degree for a whole lot. Maybe getting friends out of traffic tickets or something, lol. I am more of a caveman capitalist like you. My favorite job ever was doing demolition on old buildings in the summers during my undergrad years.

AGgressive Metal wrote:Yeah I am probably not going to use my law degree for a whole lot. Maybe getting friends out of traffic tickets or something, lol. I am more of a caveman capitalist like you. My favorite job ever was doing demolition on old buildings in the summers during my undergrad years.

Demo work can be very high tech now with imploding buildings and all. Plus, you need to be a lawyer just to understand all the laws, regs., and ordinances covering it.

If you like scraping, demo is a scrapper's dream. Maybe you should look back into it.

Do you have access to attic space? I bet you could do 75% of your time scrapping and being yourself, then the other 25% to pick up a few quick bucks.

abe wrote:Do you have access to attic space? I bet you could do 75% of your time scrapping and being yourself, then the other 25% to pick up a few quick bucks.

Defiantly, There's tons of stuff to scrap in the attic, copper wire ,pipes, steel ducts, bathroom fans aluminum gables. Then if you can get onto the roof, satellite dishes, antennas, HVAC units, lightning rods, flashing, vent pipes.....great idea!

Dude, it's a gold mine up there. Best of all, it's not your building. It's all free!

Thogey wrote:

abe wrote:Do you have access to attic space? I bet you could do 75% of your time scrapping and being yourself, then the other 25% to pick up a few quick bucks.

Defiantly, There's tons of stuff to scrap in the attic, copper wire ,pipes, steel ducts, bathroom fans aluminum gables. Then if you can get onto the roof, satellite dishes, antennas, HVAC units, lightning rods, flashing, vent pipes.....great idea!

Dude, it's a gold mine up there. Best of all, it's not your building. It's all free!

lol, I didn't mean strip out the attic, I meant for storage space.

I lived in an apartment for a year after living for years in houses. It was a "space shock" to say the least. This is when prices were rather low and metals could be found nearly at will. I found five gallon buckets worked really well. Didn't want to use corrugated cardboard cause of horror stories I've heard of roaches hiding in the cardboard. If you know someone you can trust to store larger scrap on there propeerty may be something worth looking into also.