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A new scrap yard opened up by me and they buy #1 plastic. 1st yard that I know of that dose. Paying .30 a pound for it. I wonder how many plastic bottles it will take to make a pound!

That's convenient. They probably have a baler, as most of the large plastic buying companies want plastic baled for pickup.

If prices keep going up, expect more yards to start dealing in the more valuable plastics.

I need to find out if they can be crushed, if they can have the plastic caps and rings on them and if lables need to be removed as well. But I think you are right if these prices stay high hopefully more scrap yards will deal in plastic.

What # plastic are grocery bags?

Standard plastic grocery bags are #4 - LDPE or low-density polyethylene. This type of plastic is not as valuable, but can still be recycled.

Most plastic beverage bottles are #1 - Polyethylene terephthalate, aka PET or PETE.

A lot of times PET bottles are sold baled, then shredded elsewhere. Another method is to shred first and then bale, common in states with bottle deposits. In either case, cap and label remnants are removed after the shredding.

Your yard may require you to remove the caps, and they may even require you to sort by color. If not, they probably color-sort themselves before baling.

AGgressive Metal wrote:What # plastic are grocery bags?

Bags by me are mostly #2 but they will not take them in the city recycling bins, you have to return them to the stores to put in there bins to be recycled.

Found some more info on the #1 bottles. They can have caps and labels on them and they can be crushed as well. It looks like 2 1/2 watter bottles to make an ounce. It will take some time to collect enough to make it worth it...

I do not know where you are located but in CT, NY, ME & hopefully soon in MA the deposits on the water bottles is 5 cents.

AZ. No deposit laws here...

Oregon also has a .05 deposit now

You will need to fill up the RV in AZ and drop them off in Oregon!

Filled up a 32 gal bag of them smashed, it weighs 8 lbs. So only $2.40 a bag I'll wait till I have 6 bags at least to take down. So much for quick cash on these! But I will not give it to the city in there bins. They charge $16.85 a month for garbage and recycling. I keep the alum cans as well as the steel ones.

the place i am dealing iwth is a start up business. trying to make a niche that no one else is taking.

the bad thing for them , is they do not have a baler. so are shipping a lot of air. i for one am trying to help, by smashing the plastic.

the glass they are taking, cannot be broken. but. again, htey are shipping tooo much air.

I am smashing the plastic as well and only have filled up one bag about 10 lbs. I wonder what other non metal items they will expand to next? Cardboard and newspaper would be good I would think!

Dr. Cadmium wrote:If not, they probably color-sort themselves before baling.

Isn't that an expensive process? I heard one yard near me wanted to get one machine that could sort glass bottles by color, but the tech was too expensive for them.

Yes, the tech is expensive. That's why much glass and plastic is still sorted by hand, usually by workers picking the material from a conveyor belt as it goes by.

hobo finds wrote:Filled up a 32 gal bag of them smashed, it weighs 8 lbs. So only $2.40 a bag I'll wait till I have 6 bags at least to take down. So much for quick cash on these! But I will not give it to the city in there bins. They charge $16.85 a month for garbage and recycling. I keep the alum cans as well as the steel ones.

steel cans .085
cat food---al alloy==.60

Even with no bailer, is there an easy way to shred them first? No, not your lawnmower. LOL

hobo finds wrote:A new scrap yard opened up by me and they buy #1 plastic. 1st yard that I know of that dose. Paying .30 a pound for it. I wonder how many plastic bottles it will take to make a pound!

Depends on the size of the bottle.

The machines that do this are very impressive, very high tech, and very expensive. We have one. It is called an optical sorter and seperates the colors by shooting lasers through the bottles as they fall.. then the computer shoots the bottles in different directions with puffs of air. Glass bottles can be sold by color or as mixed glass. Obviously the mixed glass goes for much less. I ship out well over 100 tons of just mixed glass every week.

PET is normally sold mixed without sorting for color.

There are machines specifically designed to do the shredding as well.

Balers are fairly expensive pieces of equipment also.. but you definately need one to do any serious volume.

.30 a pound is actually a very good price for scrap PET.. that is $600 a ton.

hobo finds wrote:A new scrap yard opened up by me and they buy #1 plastic. 1st yard that I know of that dose. Paying .30 a pound for it. I wonder how many plastic bottles it will take to make a pound!

It will take approximately 9.7 2 liter bottles or 19.5 regular bottles to make a pound. So that works out to about 3 cents for big bottles and 1.5 cents for little bottles.

Hoard is like a scrap yard accountant- always knows the math behind any element on the Periodic table and now plastic!

I don't do much plastic.. only about 50 tons a month.

HoardCopperByTheTon wrote:I don't do much plastic.. only about 50 tons a month.

Lazy.

18 lbs #1 plastic bottles @.30 lb TTL $5.40 (2 large plastic bags worth)