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by agumonkey 2905 days ago
It's quite tempting considering the tons of stuff thrown out.

I think with a small team of quite knowledgeable people you can have different revenue streams

    - stupid repairs (failing buttons, so common)
    - parts (where the team would be here to create test tooling)
    - materials (here you'd need chemistry knowledge)
I'd love that but I admit it's not easy and can be risky (never injured myself more than since I started scavenging parts)
1 comments
pbhjpbhj 2905 days ago
I've thought about this as a commercial operation in the UK; but TBH I can't see that you could make enough money from it. However, it does seem to serve a very useful function in society, and would be something I'd want to fund through government - but it goes against commercial interests (people with repairs don't buy as much stuff).

We're getting some charities working to help people make repairs, some maker-spaces and such that facilitate people doing it themselves, etc..

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guywithaphone 2905 days ago
It's not impossible to make a living refurbishing electronics... the big problem isn't fixing the electronics. It's gathering them, selling them, and supporting sold electronics.

Some people do a great job. Check out recraigslist.com and applianceschool.com (same person runs both) for examples of how to refurb/ flip large appliances at scale.

The blind center of lad Vegas is another successful organisation that refurbished at scale.

Computer repair and cell phone repair stores are another example of successful refurbishing at scale...

One of the biggest problems is that individuals and businesses hoard old electronics... Loss aversion (the fear of losing something perceived as valuable) is a big reason that more electronics aren't refurbished or recycled. Fear of data theft is another, smaller reason that more electronics aren't recycled.

In the end, there are a lot of pros and a lot of cons to this business... because it is difficult to be consistently successful, there is a lot of opportunity. There are a lot of ways to make money in the recycling industry. Finding and developing a niche that other people can't or don't want to do-- that has a high upside -- can be a great way to make a good living.

If you want to jump on, there is little risk --- mostly just a trip to the metals yard.

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