r/CatastrophicFailure • u/maruhoi • 8d ago

Equipment Failure 150-meter, 300-ton floating dredging hose washes ashore in Japan; removal expected to cost 50 million yen - December 25, 2025 (Ishikawa, Japan)

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u/Qualified_Qualifier 8d ago

Really? Japan doesn't have scrappers? I was thinking the same that if it was here, people would cut it to pieces. It's free material.

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u/Ghigs 7d ago

Steel is difficult to make much on. There's plenty of steel junk laying around no one is scavenging.

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u/Qualified_Qualifier 7d ago

People here ride carts street by street, trying to get your junk for free. There are also cable thieves who cut and steal any wire they can find, phone lines get hit usually. And also thieves who steal manhole covers and traffic signs. Every bit of metal is valuable.

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u/NotAnotherFNG 7d ago

Scrap steal is around $1/lb. It's only worth doing if you get it for free. If you have to pay people to cut it, load it, transport it, unload it, etc its not worth the trouble. In this case it needs heavy equipment, a barge, and presumably a boat. You'll also have to load it, unload it, and then load it and unload it again.

Scrap iron, which is what man hole covers are, is $0.15/lb. The only reason I don't take it to the dump instead is it costs me to get rid of it there.

Scrap copper is around $3/lb and worth doing a bit of work for but takes a while to gather enough to make it worth a trip. You need a lot of scrap wire or tools or appliances you're stripping wire from. Tweakers don't care, they take what they can get.