New Law to curb scrap metal theft

[Opiyum]

Recently on my way to work one morning I heard a bit on NPR about new laws in California and a few others states going into effect that will require scrap metal recyclers to take a person's picture, thumb print and other information along with delaying payment for three days to discourage people from scrapping stolen metals.
If this goes nationwide, which I imagine it will, it sure will make things more difficult. I for one will be taking an acetylene torch and a Metabo home from my place of work to help remove anything that may identify whatever metals I will be scrapping in the future.
Here's an article from the webage....
http://www.nbc-2.com/Articles/readarticle.asp?articleid=21928&z=3

Additionally I have been gone for a little while and having just returned home momentarily it's nice to see the place is still kicking and that a few old members have returned. I'm sorry to hear we have a few more departed opiophiles to add to the list. I can only hope whatever happened didn't happen painfully.

[jonny-5]

thats fucked up. scrap metal is what helps my friend feed his kid, hes an electrician and he carries a box with him wherever he goes and collects all the clippings. he will not be happy to hear this.

[Narkotikon]

That's funny. The last outpatient rehab I went to (last fall - same one where the idiot woman thought that opiates themselves caused people to get infectious diseases) was the typical group setting, and new people came in each week, others left because of graduating the program / leaving on their own / being kicked out. Anyway, half-way into it this one guy came in, who had been arrested for sealing copper tubing out of houses that were under construction. Apparently there was some big news story about it around here, but I didn't make the connection that it was actually him until I started talking to him. He stole the copper, took it to scrap metal yards in Northern Kentucky, sold it, and used the money to finance his pot habit. The friend who helped him do it used the money he got from helping to finance a heroin habit, or so this other guy said. The heroin guy wasn't in my group, just the pot guy. I just thought it was funny that he was actually in there. I've never been around people who were in the news like that before. In some twisted way it was like having a celebrity in the group, not that I condone what he did. But you know what I mean.

[I-Nod]

I used to run a biz doing remodeling and insurance repairs... I had a crew in Cleveland, constantly re-plumbing these bank-owned homes. They'd have us re-install copper... only to have the scrappers come BACK and tear it all out again.

Now I'm a furnace operator, melting down aluminum. Our main source of recycled aluminum is car rims... you wouldn't believe how many people have been caught out in our yard stealing rims. They get about 15$ for each rim... toss 20 of them over the fence and you gotcher self a decent score.

[red26]

Not too long ago I was in LODO denver and a fellow junkie asked me if I had I.D. I asked him why and he told me that he had a backpack full of copper but the yard would'nt take it unless he had I.D., wich, of course he did not. I didnt have the time to help but yeah, this shits goin down.

[cactus31]

Metal theft is a rampant problem here in Portland and the whole metro area.

It's not quite as bad as it was last summer, when every damn day there was a news story about a big metal theft.

It's always tweekers here. I took some scrap last year after cleaning out my mom's basement...took some old copper wire, some 10/2, and recyled it and got $80 for 7 lbs!

So I do see why people do it.

They've stolen guard rail around here, stuff from parks, metal irrigation pipe from farmers (aluminum).

A few dipshits must have thought they found a big bunch of metal, but it turns out they cut through a major fiber optic backbone that runs from Portland to the beach, wiping out phoneservice for 2 days...911, everything.

This was last year, I think.

Good God, I just did a quick search for the article (I didn't find it), and there's articles on theft of beer kegs, railroad track, the crushed aluminum out of can recycle machines, power pole transformers (real smart), etc!!

[God_Albino]

some tweakers got killed trying to cut down a big metal powerline-type thing up the shore from here, i think one was electrocuted and one got crushed. fuckin a.

my pops an electrician, and we could make 600-700 a trip with just honestly obtained scrap. tweakers are gonna steal anything no matter what laws are passed, it's probably just going to end up being a hassle for the honest folk.

[ZodiacKiller]

Yeah, I see this stuff happen all the time---this past week even. I'm in remodeling/restoration, and we've been working on a fancy, 100-year-old office building, replacing a bunch of huge windows. Well, we have to demo the old frames out to get the new ones in, and when we're done with a few, we put the big pile of wood, iron, and aluminum out the door prior to going in the dumpster.

Well, I had just piled up a huge bunch of crap, and we were gonna save all the metal for ourselves---after this job is done it'll probably add up to a bit of money. Not TEN MINUTES after I piled it up, I went back out and EVERY SCRAP of metal was gone! How the fuck did they even sort through it all that fast? Amazing....


ZK

[cactus31]

God_Albino,

Your right, dude. If people want to get that dollar for metal, they will. Everything's made of metal!

It really must be like a person with a sweet tooth who's become lost in Candyland,....but for tweekers!

Just walking down the street, snap a piece of light pole off and keep walking...like a metallic gingerbread world of sorts for weirdos, lol!

[devilsdrug]

way back scrappin was a way to pay the dope bill , damn oakland never asked for shit , imean what would u say when a couple shady lookers show up with 1000s of lbs of new brass valves and the next day its barrels of scrap copper or a couple 100 feet of in copper pipe or bla bla bla, in the worst times its was cruise the burbs lookin for a radiater or scrap batterys, ah what fun it was

[SurfRat]

Yeh, well as the economy collapses and the dollar becomes increasingly worthless

so metal, all metals become more and more valuable.


Sign of the times and I hope it doesn't get worse.

[nick]

Yeah,someone's been ripping off henry Moore sculptures in England.I'm hoping it's an anarchist artist collective making a "statement",but I suspect it's a gang of junkys making money.

[Narkotikon]

Isn't this how the term "junky" came to be? I mean, weren't heroin addicts and other drug addicts called junkies because they collected old tin cans and stuff to recycle for dope money? This is ironic that it's happening again. Although, it's probably always happened (I mean, that term came around in the twenties or so didn't it?), but is now just making news. Plus, with the economy the way it is, I'm sure that has a part in it too.

[ZodiacKiller]

^^Maybe, Narko, but I always thought the term junky came from the slang word for heroin: "junk".


ZK

[Narkotikon]

Well, that too. I always heard that junk came to be identified with heroin and heroin users as junkies because the addicts collected "junk" or tin cans, old bottles, and other stuff to recycle / sell for dope.

[rockbottom]

my brother has outstanding warrents here in cali--using his id to cash in stolen metal--they have a scrap metal task force---fuck em all;)