Poll--Have you gotten any free PC's from Freecycle.org?

[Chiefish]

Heh heh heh
I break them up pretty good, i give the steel and the aluminum to a guy who takes steel, i break the hard drives down and sell the platters on ebay for scrap, the rest goes to the metal scrap guy, the memory and mother boards and all the misc cards go in the gold reclaim box that will get sold on ebay soon, and the plastic goes in the scrap bin where i work to be recycled into a new bumper or somthing. So i am actually trying to recycle as much as i can of them. I use that as a tool to convince people its better to give it to me than throw it out in the dump.

[johnorun]

[johnorun]

[johnorun]

Ohh--I forgot to ask:
What do you guys, that recycle Gold-plated computer parts, do with this material?
Do any of you salvage the gold parts from the old Military, Mainframe or Telecom boards that you strip chips from?

I thought I could have the "one pound load" that I had saved melted down and get paid for it, but after I called the precious metals refinery near Chicago, I learned that you need over 10 pounds of plated material to break even because there is a $250-350 minimum "refinery fee" for any size amount of scrap that you turn in. (Their main customers are industrial firms that turn in large loads of scrap gold material).
They told me that each pound of gold-plated electronic scrap yields about $40 of gold, on average.
I was thinking that if we could combine 50+ pounds together, I would take it there and get it refined, since 50 pounds might yield $2000. or more of gold, gross before fees.

I would enjoy doing it and if they allow, I'd even video the melting process and post it.
If anyone wants to consider this, let me know.