All of the larger telcos and power utilities have been 're-smelting' copper for decades. Verizon (nee NY Telephone) had a copper smelting plant on Staten Island at one time that recycled all of the used cross-connect wire and cables removed from underground and poles. Telco main distribution frame personnel were, and very likely still are, instructed to use "copper-scrap" bags for depositing small bits and pieces of copper wiring collected at cleanup time at the end of work shifts. Many years ago, copper, for this reason, was one of the three "C"'s that no one would mess with. Copper and Cash were two.I'll leave the third one to the reader's imagination. This subject is interesting because it's one of the cost-justifiers in business models that seek to re-engineer large office buildings and other copper-intensive venues where the objective is to replace all copper wiring with hybrid fiber-wireless alternatives. While reclamation through salvage is only a by-product of this movement, it is nonetheless one that is cash intensive, so it cannot be overlooked. Not only is the copper data cabling removed (Cat3/5e/6, in this case), but also potentially tons of power cables and racks supporting sometimes hundreds of riser telecom/LAN closets, where there are usually anywhere from two to four closets per floor, depending on the size of the floor plate, in a forty- or sixty-story building, say. Every copper penny helps these days. --- streiner@cluebyfour.org wrote: From: "Justin M. Streiner" <streiner@cluebyfour.org> To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Recycling old cabling? Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2010 07:29:50 -0400 (EDT) Just out of curiosity, is anyone here recycling old cabling and plant infrastructure for their raw materials, or engaging a recycler to handle those materials? Where I work, there is almost always a renovation project going on. This provides opportunities to rip out Cat3/Cat5/long-abandoned thicknet/thinnet/FDDI-grade fiber/etc, which we normally do. Most of the time that old cabling ends up in the dumpster, but I'm wondering if anyone is recycling it, either by their choice, or as the result of company policy or relevant laws in your area? Cat3/Cat5 can be broken down to raw materials with some effort, but I haven't seen many recyclers with an economically viable process for doing it. Coax is a bit tougher, but not impossible (same questions about economic viability still apply). Fiber can be tough, expecially if you're dealing with something like 20+ year old gel-buffered cable where the has long-since dried out. I'd be interested to hear other peoples' experiences along these lines. jms