Iron mining and steel manufacturing have all but collapsed in Nigeria, so the rolling companies rely heavily on waste metal and aluminum as raw materials. This situation therefore opens up opportunities for entrepreneurs to make millions from hunting and supplying scraps.
You do not have to scavenge refuse dumps in neighborhoods and soil your hands like many young people we see rummaging through piles of waste. All you have to do is create space for a scrap yard and get the ‘metal and aluminum scavengers’ and other suppliers to dump their materials there. You can also seek for people who are more interested in getting those metal scraps out of their environment for sanitation purposes, so you end up paying little or nothing for large quantity of metals. If you can gather good quantity of metal, copper, or aluminum in your scrap yard, then you are on your way to making good money. Metal is sold according to weight and one ton of metal is sold for about N35,000 – N40,000, while ten tons (a trailer load) goes for N350,000 to N400,000. Similarly, one ton of aluminum is sold for N130,000 while ten tons goes for about N1,300,000.
The irony of the business is that most of these metals or aluminum scraps are picked freely as waste in most Nigerian cities. If you put a good strategy in place, you can pick at least one ton of each material within a month and the market is guaranteed. Rolling companies will send their trucks to move the materials from your scrap yard, so you don’t have to bother about moving it to the company.
From the highlighted cost breakdown, you can see that aluminum scraps are more profitable, but in practice they are more expensive to buy and difficult to find. Another strategy to employ is to gather scraps of items that have requisite components like scrap electrical equipment, scrap aluminum zinc, scrap electrical wires, scrap auto spare parts, scrap ship or plane parts, scrap beams, and scrap rods and so on.
There are companies that require these raw materials all year round and two of the top buyers are the Metal Recycling Industries Limited, (Sagamu – Ikorodu Road) Ogun State; and Nigerian Foundries Limited, Otta. You have to conduct research yourself before you begin so that you can get the companies closest to your scarp yard and willing to offer you the best price. Buying scrap is a cheap alternative of getting raw materials for those rolling companies.
As an entrepreneur, the secret is buy cheap, stock in commercial quantity, sell at market price and enjoy the gold mine.
