Is selling old pc parts business considered recycling???

[CompTech]

I've been a tech for a long time, accumulating tons of spare parts. My question is about expanding my repair business into selling some of the newer (past 5 years) parts on eBay. I would like to inform customers that I'll gladly take their old computers but since I'll be selling the parts after removal does this qualify me as a recycler or just a business? Also, do I offer them money for old computers or just ask them to donate them? Do they get a tax write off or is rhis not actual recycling? Not sure since I will be using the components to sell. I don't want to misrepresent and yet this seems a good idea for expanding my business during slow times. Would appreciate any feedback before going further. This forum has always been very helpful to me. Thanks so much.

 

[Metanis]

Yes it's recycling!

Yes, I would consider it recycling. What difference does it make if you make a bit of profit on the transaction or some Chinese forge melting down the motherboards for precious metals?

Most customers are happy to let you handle the disposal of their old electronics. Let them know you will destroy their data professionally and they might even pay a bit for the service. You shouldn't pay a single dollar for any old system as your profit margin is going to be slim enough as it requires a lot of time to properly inventory, wipe, and dispose of old systems.

Eventually you will be forced to find a way to dispose of all the old circuit boards that you couldn't sell or re-use. That will cost you some money as some localities make it illegal to throw them in the regular trash.

I hope you are successful because I like being able to find old parts on ebay for cheap!

 

[Montrose Computers]

I would just send it to an ewaste buyer instead on messing around with eBay, especially with all the negative stories I have read on here recently. Those circuit boards are worth good money. Here is a price list from Cashforcomputerscrap for example.

PRINTED CIRCUIT BOARDS
Please remove batteries and excess AL and Steel
PRICE/LB MATERIAL
$2.90 Motherboards Mixed Socket (Large and Small Socket)
$2.10 Small Socket Foreign Boards
$2.75 Finger Board Trimmed/Devalued
$3.90 Finger Boards
$3.90 Dual Socket Server Boards - Large Socket
$2.80 Dual Socket Server Boards - Small Socket
$3.00 to 6.00+ Telecom (Paid on Sort)
$2.90 CD/DVD Boards

HIGH VALUE PRINTED CIRCUIT BOARDS
PRICE/LB MATERIAL
$6.25 RAMBUS (Memory with METAL Enclosure)
$9.50 Hard Drive Boards
$10.75 Cell Phone Boards CLEAN (please remove excess Plastic, Steel, Aluminum and Battery)
$12.00 Memory Mixed (Gold, Silver/Tin) (DUE TO THIS BEING A NEW CHANGE, PRICE EFFECTIVE AUGUST 28TH WILL BE $9.00)
$13.85 Gold Memory
$11.75 Silver/Tin Memory (DUE TO THIS BEING A NEW CHANGE, PRICE EFFECTIVE AUGUST 28TH WILL BE $6.50)
$50.00 Gold Fingers (Pricing is for quality cut trim. Little to no Green, otherwise deduction)
$10.50 Slot Processor

OTHER PRECIOUS METAL ITEMS
PRICE/LB MATERIAL
$1.50 Gold Connectors
$5.25 Cell Phones w/o battery

CPUs (Must be Sorted)
PRICE/LB MATERIAL
$115.00 Intel 386 and 486
$77.00 Motorola
$75.00 Pentium Pro Gold Caps
$40.00 Cyrix/IBM/VIA Gold Cap
$35.00 Pentium Ceramic
$31.00 AMD Ceramic Clean (without Al. Cap)
$31.00 Black Fiber CPU
$15.75 Green/Brown Fiber without Heatsink
$7.15 Green Fiber with Heatsink - Pins
$6.25 Green Fiber with Heatsink - Pinless

COMPUTER/SERVER PARTS
PRICE/LB MATERIAL
$0.85 Hard Drives Complete
$0.40 Hard Drives w/o Boards
$0.33 Power Supply w/ Wire
$0.26 Power Supply w/o Wire
$0.15 Mixed Floppy/CD/DVD Drives

OTHER ITEMS
PRICE/LB MATERIAL
$0.95 Laptops Complete
$0.75 Incomplete laptops (Must have Motherboard)
$0.24 AC Adapter w/ Wire
$0.15 AC Adapter w/o Wire
$0.70 Mixed Computer Wire
$0.06 Mixed Computer Plastic (NO METAL!)
$2.50 [per UNIT] Whole DESKTOP LCD, Complete With Base - No screen bleeding, gouges, Cracks, Cut cables

And this is with the crappy gold and silver prices we have now. Year ago it was much higher than this.

 

[CompTech]

Recycling

Thank you both for the helpful answers. Greatly appreciated and clearly shows me options I've been wondering about. This is a really great forum and always someone to help out.

Thanks again!

 

[tarik]

I wish we could get money over here for them like that. Im lucky I have a recycling company that comes and collects them for free! Maybe things are different over here in the UK.