Stripping copper from electrical goods??

PapaJas

Hi all

A friend of mine who has some experience of car booting reckons that people are buying broken electrical items for the purpose of stripping the copper out of them for sale to scrap metal merchants.

Has anyone heard of this; is there any truth in it?

I must admit it sounds rather dubious to me but I've never been to a car boot sale in my life so what do I know?

Cheers

System

Doubt if that is cost effective if not done on a commercial scale. The outlay at a boot sale would probably outweigh the income for such small amounts of copper in the items.

An old toaster bought for £1 at a car boot contains nowhere near £1 of copper.

SailorSam

You see photos on the Tv of places such as India where they set fire to things to separate all the metals, it's a bit dangerous with the chemicals that are let off.
When we had the house rewired there was loads of old cables that went straight into the wheelie bin, sorry now we could have probably stripped that and weighed it in.
Can't see buying stuff worth it though.

tyllwyd

Are you sure they are buying them? We had a skip outside the house last summer, and we had people knocking on the door asking if they could take anything metal/electrical (and people helping themselves of course).

newsseller12

not worth bothering unless they are free. also if you are stripping them down and they are not your own you should be complying with the WEE regulations and also have a waste carriers license to move the materials about.

patman99

Easiest way to strip insulation from copper cable =

Soak overnight in sealed tub of cellulose thinners. Insulation comes-off like putty.

shebangs

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PapaJas

Thanks all, didn't think it sounded feasible really.