OT - What do you do with your old rotors?

[DerbyDad03]

If you do your own brakes, what do you do with the old pads and rotors?

Garbage? Recycling bin? Something else?

[gfretwell]

Around here any metal you set on the curb will be gone in a day. You never have to worry about old washing machines, car parts or anything else that is metal.

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, Take it to scrap yard. They even pay by the weight.

[The Daring Dufas]

Use the rotors to make dumbbell weights for exercising your muscles. The old pads can be used to make heat resistant inserts for your bench vice to hold items that will be subjected to the open flame of a torch. That's what I just came up with. I'm sure with a little thought I could come up with something else. I am thinking about how old brake pads could be used as guides for metal parts that slide to protect the rest of some structure or assembly. Old rotors are good for holding down tarps too or anything that needs some weight to prevent wind from blowing it away or to weight something down that you are gluing. ^_^

TDD

[nestork]

I'll normally trash the pads and take the rotors down to any muffler shop to be added to their scrap steel pile. Garages will normally collect stuff like old engine oil and scrap steel and sell it to oil recyclers and scrap metal dealers.

With scrap steel at $140 per ton, even a 20 pound rotor will only fetch $1.40 as scrap metal, or less than $3 for both of them. A scrap metal collector is gonna burn more in gasoline coming to get those rotors than they're worth to him. So, the thing that makes the most sense to me is to throw them in someone else's scrap steel pile, and every muffler shop has one of those. I'd rather see that steel recycled than toss it in the trash so that it rusts away in the land fill site.

[clare]

Around here, the scrappers only pay for over 300 lb of ferrous.

[gfretwell]

That is why you just put them on the curb and the guy picks them up on his route.

[Doug Miller]

Tony Hwang wrote in news:XRA9v.1015940$ [e-mail]:

That's really stupid for such a small amount as a few brake rotors. Scrap steel goes for about US $220 per short ton, or eleven cents a pound.

I'd need to recycle at least 20 pounds of steel just to pay for the fuel to drive to the nearest recycler and back. It makes more sense to throw it away.

[micky]

They don't do this everywhere. Certainly not on my street which is not a through-street, but I don't think they do it anywhere around here. Maybe near downtown.

[clare]

Around here it is not the scrap-yards, It's the "urban miners" that pick up just about anything with ANY metal in it. Usually a tough looking pickup truck or shaggy car with a scrappy looking trailer and one or 2 unsavoury looking characters. The beggars have even taken my metal garbage bins - I chased the one guy down and threatened to call the cops.

And I live in a pretty good part of town.

[Robert Green]

I suspect that even in nice residential neighborhoods there are people that cruise the streets in the early AM before the trashmen run their route to look for goodies. They certainly do it around here. I am up late often and I see people slowing down and picking through my neighbor's trash (she throws out nearly new stuff quite often - it's where I rescued a perfectly good cross-cut shredder that just needed some WD-40 and motor oil to revive it). They always seem to make the rounds a few hours before normal trash pickup.

One thing that *doesn't* disappear anymore is old CRT TV's so they do have

*some* standards. Someone came by late in the summer walking his dog and began to root through her trash pile and when he found something he liked (a faux antique washstand made out of pressboard) he asked me to "hold it" for him until he got his pickup truck! I politely told him I was going inside right away to so something "important" and I wouldn't be watching it but that I didn't expect it to go anywhere.

I might have been more helpful had I not recognized him as someone that often let his dog poop on my lawn!!!!!! Yeah, I'll be "holding that" for you.

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, Stupid? Last time when I took patio frames, broken this and that, I was just happy to get rid of it. But they paid couple bucks. Big scrap yard and electronics recycle depot is not far from me. With that money I dropped by next door recycle depot, bought 2 Fujitsu SCSI 500GB SCA drives for 10.00 each. I had to add 15.00 to make

20.00. You drive tank talking about fuel cost?, LOL. Old Japanese saying, You can laugh at penny, you can also cry for penny.

[DerbyDad03]

Well, I got all of the answers I thought I would. The deal is this:

I put the rotors out with the trash last week. I leaned the rotors up against the recycling bin, so whoever wanted them could take them: the trash pickers, the recycling guys, the trash guys.

When I came home from work the rotors were lying on the ground next to the empty trash can and recycling bins.

This week I'll put them _in_ the recycling bin and see what happens.

[Doug Miller]

Tony Hwang wrote in news:5NF9v.157354$ [e-mail]:

Stupid? Yes, stupid, to recycle a couple of brake rotors. What part of eleven cents a pound are you having trouble understanding?

[trader_4]

Yes, same here. I was surprised when I put out some old sheet metal that was part of my old furnace. I put it out ahead of the bulk pickup by the township, when they would take it. Before they got there, some guy was loading it into his truck.

[Pico Rico]

you would be better off putting a sign $15.00. Then they would steal it for sure, even if it was junk.

[Percival P. Cassidy]

Our local Rescue Mission accepts scrap metals and sells them off to the commercial recyclers.

Perce

[Jon Danniken]

They go in the steel recycling tip when I go on a recycling run at the local dump.

Jon

[The Daring Dufas]

Around this area, if you put an old CRT TV/monitor on the curb, it will be smashed by bipedal metal termites in order to get the copper deflection coil. The insects leave a big mess scattered all over the front yard of the home. To bad the only effective insecticide for them will get you arrested if you make effective use of it. ^_^

TDD

[Don Phillipson]

Small rotors are convenient for blocking groundhog holes.