wastefull industry

[roofman]

I was left speechless recently upon a scrapyard find...a full large crate of brandnew metric nuts and bolts of all sizes and many still in there retail boxes. Upon asking the story on there new home i was told it was common from the same company to do this during shelf re-stocking.Anyway allthough i filled the back of my van which made me happy i was not so happy at the waste that had happened and made worse by the fact that there profit on this stuff must be high enough to absorb the disposal. Anyone else seen a crime of this nature??

 

[rtbcomp]

Two large (1m x 1m x 1m) boxes of brand new copper pipe fittings in a scrap yard.

 

[brightspark]

yea thousands of gallons of 2k paint ditched because a company was taken over and the name changed . a lot of it was sold at sales instead of being taken to the tip .i bought a load 10 quid a tin its normaly 60 quid . i rang the firm up askin what hardener to use and the guy said not another carboot purchase and told the tale . a lot of stuff is just scrapped even though it could be sold but its not cost efective to sell to individuals and they get full tax allowance on it anyhows quite a lot of good gear gets crushed 1st before scrapping so it cant be re used

 

[Hitch]

We skip shed loads of M16 and M20 bolts. Used once to hold temporary steels in place, then skipped. Cheaper to buy new than to sort them out half the time.

 

[blenkie1]

Most big firms work like this. British gas had an engineering and research place not far from me where I learned to weld and they had a set budget every year to spend. If they did not spend it all the budget for the following year was reduced. They skipped loads of stainless hydraulic fittings amongst other things only to buy them back in! When the blue streak rocket project, again at spadeadam, closed all tools generators (rolls Royce ones), pumps, etc were all buried!

Strange thing business

 

[Robotstar5]

I was asked to see about selling some machine control gear we no longer needed, cost us about £3k and was still in delivery packaging. Did some research into companies that buy up this sort of stock for resale and the going "buy-in" rate is about 4% of retail, company decided it wasn't worth the effort so skipped the lot!.

 

[Bill Edwards]

It is a stupid waste of resources, I've seen ridiculous wastage. Great if you're in the right place at the right time as there can be oppertunities for fantastic bargains, though sometimes the answer is just 'no'.

One problem must be the high cost of wages (to the company!). Paying people to sort through stuff, work out what can be salvaged out of offcuts, paying them to sharpen small drill bits etc exceeds the cost of buying in a new part. That's how things are in the UK, labor is expensive.

 

[cumbriasteve]

When I was working there was a massive clear out of a large apprentice workshop, skips load of new equipment went, including over 500 various new files, approx 1000 taper drills, boxes of lathe tools, lathe chucks, 6 pillar drills, milling cutters and much more.

I asked if I could have some, offering to pay and was told no...the paperwork was too much trouble, only the lathes and milling machines were put out to tender, I think it was about £18k which won 24 lathes, 8 milling machines, 6 bandsaws and several MIG's plus other various items.

 

[Robotstar5]

I worked in a factory that wouldn't sell anything off in case there was a problem/claim etc. the saying was "they wouldn't even sell a table in case a leg fell off"

 

[scott0031]

Recently when I was having a nose about ebay I saw a biggish late heavy duty lathe for sale about 2 mtr centers. I was a bit alarmed to see a ton of rust over the carriage, cross slide, bed, tailstock quill, chuck, in short anything that was bare metal, looked in bad shape with several months worth of rusting taking a hold. It was clear this guy was not a dealer, so i mailed him just to say "in the name of god clean that thing up as before long it will be scrap value only if not already". (Don't worry i worded it polity) It was criminal to see a late lathe in such a sorry state.

He replied with no offense taken and told me the history. Two machines came off an oil rig he worked on, both to be scrapped! The other machine was a big super heavy duty geared head pill. These two machine were bought in 2004 and you could see they had been used but certainty not a hard life by any standards. He managed to make an agreement to have these two machines for the price of transporting them out of the docks to where ever... in short for nothing other than the transport! Now they have apparently sat rotting for the last year until sold, you can see the rust is from recent months of getting moisture covered, so not from the rig.

Looks like there is far to much money floating about in the oil industry.................... tell us something we don't already know! The lathe cost 30k new and about 10k ish second hand value.

Sad.


Scott

 

[chevy2]

A mate of mine is often in hub-le-bas tubes in north london and its normal for several skips a week of offcuts of tube-box etc to go out of there every week.

 

[gordon stephenson]

I remember years ago ICI went through the process of getting the accreditation BS 5750, EVERYTHING had to have total traceability right back to raw materials, you can hardly believe the amount of gear they skipped as they emptied all the stores and restocked with identical but traceable products.

 

[BrokenBiker]

company i work for have recently thrown away just over 1 million quids worth of perfectly good lorry axles, as they no longer make them and didn't want to store them until they found a buyer

 

[ibrooks]

As I type there's a skip half full of electronic components sat outside my office window (resistors mostly). They are all still on the ribbons for feeding into the pick and place machines. No idea why they are being slung but traceability is a favourite in this industry.

Thing is they have a scrap-note procedure and I know if I asked I could load the boot of the car up and take them away (I've done it with other stuff - including big enough stuff that I needed to hire a van). They also have a Charity Challenge team who raise money - mostly it's an "extra-curricular" activity for the apprentices. I've suggested a couple of times that here is a case where 2+2 could equal 6 - have the apprentices sort/clean, photograph and list on ebay with the proceeds going to the charity. No dice.

I just keep my eye on the skips as I walk past and grab anything of use to me and throw a few quid in the pot at reception or donate raffle prizes to their events.

Iain

 

[bigegg]

I used to work at a place where they disposed of 4000L + of PVA glue per week! - at a cost to the firm of £80 per 200L drum!
They also disposed of empty 25L plastic drums (originally Iso propyl Alcohol).
I came to an arrangement with the yard manager where I disposed of the PVA and drums FOC - waste disposal licence was IIRC £60 PA

I decanted the PVA into the drums, then knocked them out at 40p a litre (£10 for 25L) to lads in the pub who were builders, renderers, plasterers, concreters etc & all their mates

Was taking 1600+ per week for nearly 2 years, for about 30 hours work (+ a van).

paid off the mortgage on my first house off that -
was gutted when they went broke - but not surprised, last couple of months they skipped about 1M+ of silicon graphics workstations, including A0 laser printers + scanners and a full 2mx2m CNC laser system - I got a 60" plasma TV out of the boardroom when they "upgraded"

 

[Wedg1e]

I was at a Navy base last year when we were approached by a couple of matelots from a Royal Navy boat that had just been refitted; they asked if they could dump a load of nuts and bolts in our skip. I looked them over and suggested they might take them back to stores but they said they weren't allowed to: any open boxes could have been 'contaminated' so had to be taken out of the system.
Said hardware didn't go into the skip...
Anyone need some M36 Nylocs...?

 

[brightspark]

I was at a Navy base last year when we were approached by a couple of matelots from a Royal Navy boat that had just been refitted; they asked if they could dump a load of nuts and bolts in our skip. I looked them over and suggested they might take them back to stores but they said they weren't allowed to: any open boxes could have been 'contaminated' so had to be taken out of the system.
Said hardware didn't go into the skip...
Anyone need some M36 Nylocs...?

well theres one thing . u can check em over for radiation with your gear at work if u cant i have a gieger counter

 

[fixerupper]

I know there are loads of stories like this here is mine , years ago in the 70's I was on a train back from Scotland and I got talking to a guy who had been working on a North sea platform doing some maintainace on generators I think, his company flew him out to the rig and he was given a gopher and toolkit from the stores on the rig. We are talking BIG KIT draws of sockets, spanners ,screwdrivers, the works, the kind of thing I can only dream of owning all nearly new and mounted in a cabinet on wheels ...He's working away and he says to his gopher "pass me a (some size spanner ) and gopher says "oh it's missing from this kit ,I'll go and get another one" with that he kicks off the brake on the cabinet and pushes the whole kit over the side into the drink...
This guy says "why did you do that" the gopher says "we are not allowed to have an incomplete tool kit on the platform for safety reasons " ........ jeff....

 

[brightspark]

a mate of mine worked for harvey plant in the shetland.s a brand new waterpump with a twin lister diesel engine was being used and sucked up some crap and ruined the pump. they just dumped it on the scrapheap and got another .the firm were bringing a landrover back so me mate took the pump off and put the engine in the back of the landrover and brought it home / i give him £100 quid for it and used it with a 90cfm v twin compressor pump for shotblasting

 

[Cobbler]

A friend of mine was on a building site for a hospital I think it was & a brand new JCB slipped into the foundations, they tried for half an hour to get it out, then the boss said "bury it" can't hold the job up. its still under the building in the foundations, apparently it was only delivered that morning. It is also rumoured that there is one of those huge BM Volvo earth movers buried under the roundabout at the Chippenham M4 junction. It would not start so it got buried!