I myself have been scrapping metal ever since I was 3 years old. Well not really scrapping that hard at that age. But I used to help my dad remove old radios and takes screws and bolts out of things when I was that age.
I have a picture of me at age 3 helping my dad in his scrap metal yard which we still have.
Right now I'm not making much at scrap metal since the prices have gone down and I'm taking a break from it.
Although if I do get someone that has some scrap metal to remove then I'll go get it. Or if I see something in our town dumpster that I can scrap and make money off of I'll remove it and put it aside for selling later or if I need the money.
Right now scrap tin at the scrap metal yard I sell too is down to $75.00 a ton. Which isn't really all that bad.
That means if I took in a ton a day I would be making $50.00 per day after I factor in the cost of my gas to take it to the scrap yard since it's a ways away from my own scrap yard.
Unless I really need to sell it I'll continue hoarding onto my tin and sell the higher value metals.
The higher value metals are copper, brass and aluminum.
If you're really close to the scrap yard and you have plenty of scrap metal to take in to the yards you can make quite a bit of money off of it.
What people throw into the trash can add up to some serious cash if you have the metal.
Figure if tin were to go back to $150.00 a ton and I had 100 tons of scrap tin I could make $15,000.00 off of it before the cost of gas.
That's still a good amount to have in a bank account for something that would probably just end up in the landfill.
I also sell aluminum cans that are given to me and I find in the trash or on the side of the road. Those also add up.
I usually get $4.00 a bag for trash bag full of smashed cans. I also remove the tabs because they can be sold on ebay.