Myers Depot Metal Detectors

What do you do with your junk?

sandgroper

sandgroper

Elite Member
Joined
May 18, 2016
Messages
4,233
Location
Western Australia
What do you do with the junk you find? At the moment I put the pull tabs in a container which I'll eventually bring to a scrap yard, but what do you do with the other garbage?

For now, I throw all clean aluminium (foil etc) in a plastic bag but I don't know, do scrap yards take aluminium chocolate wrappers?

Scrap copper and brass I put in separate bags

But what do you do with bottle caps, steel cans, bobby pins, nails, mangled, dirt-encrusted aluminium and all that other stuff you run into?

Is it worth scrapping or just throw it in the recycling bin?
 
I seperate all my junk. I have a small bucket in my SUV that I put all the trash in. At the end of the month or when it gets full. I sit in the garage and go through it. I use 5 gallon buckets. One is all aluminum (tabs, slaw cans).
One is for anything that a magnet ( iron steel ) will pick up.
One for brass.
One for copper.
I dont save the foil wrappers. At the end of the year, before we come back to the Philippines. I take it to the scrap yard. I don't get rich. Just some mad money the wife don't know I have. Hope that helps... KEN
 
I keep copper and brass, the rest gets tossed. A five gallon bucket full usually brings anywhere from 20-30$ maybe a little more if completely full.
 
I am not too proud to admit I twerk my junk.

Don't judge It makes me feel pretty.


Sorry I had to
 
Goes in the trash at the local ball field I am hunting, or whenever I come upon one.

Sent from my LG-H910 using Tapatalk
 
I save and sort it out like dirtykneese. 5 gallon buckets. One for copper and brass, which I will sort further when full, one for pull and stay tabs. Another for the other scrap aluminum. One for any thing magnetic. Foils and anything questionable get tossed in with my home recycling. And also a bucket for lead. I find enough of that also

Sent from my XT830C using Tapatalk
 
Thanks for everyone's replies, I will definitely be sorting my trash, I guess I do it to not only recycle but at least I'll get some reward for digging up rubbish.

Lead I most commonly find in the form of sinkers and if my box gets full (which it will be very soon), I'll be selling them individually, you'd get more $ from them if you sold them separately.

Just one last question to dirtykneese and groundhog, does it matter if the iron/steel is badly rusted? Do they still take it or do they expect you to remove it (ie. only clean steel)
 
Yeah, lead,copper,brass all have a value that makes it reasonable to bring home and sort into buckets to haul in once/yr or so or sell to some guy...the rest, not so much...Sometimes somebody will post a receipt of their scrap haul when they cash it in..so thats sort of a motivator to the rest of us to keep a guy bringing it home...It all adds up!

I remember a few years back, some detector guy was hunting an old abandoned farm and got a huge overload alongside the barn...so he kicked through the dirt and years of detritus to see what it was....Turned out to be a pile of 20' lengths of 2" copper pipe!!:laughing: Said he had a hell of a time getting those out of there as you an imagine! Had to bring in a trailer even! But it was a big payday!:laughing: I'll never forget that!

Tragically, the Detectorists parameters are: "Junk pays the bills and the Wife gets the gold"..:laughing:

Mud
 
Last edited:
I keep Copper, Brass and Lead. The Copper and Brass will be sold to the recycler and the lead will be recycled into fishing weights that I can use.

The rest of the junk I dig goes in the nearest Trash Can.
 
I throw it all away ASAP unless it's interesting. Me being single, the "interesting junk" becomes man-cave junk, Grrr!

I donate it to hunt buddy(s) in the field if they like scrap copper though. Otherwise, I'm just too interested in cleaning coins and relics, AND getting back out swinging a coil again.
 
That's none of your beeswax, buster!

Oh....THAT junk.

The person I crash with when detecting is in the metals business, so I let him do with it as he sees fit.
 
Trash goes in the trash. Coins go in the coinstar. Junk jewelry and silver jewelry go to the kids. Wife will get anything of real value, if/when I find it. I get the pleasure of detecting and posting pictures.

BCD
 
I could understand why some of you recycle only brass and copper; it's those that pay the most (anyway here in WA that's the case).

But I don't often find scrap copper or brass, but instead a copious amount of aluminium scrap so I'd probably make way more in scrapping aluminium than copper and brass combined.
 
I save my pull tabs in a gallon size bucket. I intend to count them when I find a gold item so that I can see what my "tab to gold" ratio is. Currently I have hundreds if not thousands of tabs, and still no gold. The copper, brass, and lead gets saved to cash in later. I do save good iron junk like ax heads, horseshoes, and big square nails. The rest of the iron and all of the aluminum get recycled.
 
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