If you own a yacht or work fixing electronics or scrapping outdated machinery or lights, you may have extra ballasts lying around.
Ballasts are complex pieces of hardware, and you wouldn’t be the first to try to sell them for cash.
Only 12% of functional electronics are recycled or repurposed, which is unfortunate.
Although not everyone is motivated to make money by recycling fluorescent light ballasts, there are certain things you can do to make it worthwhile.
How Much Is Ballast Worth in Scrap?
There are two types of ballast scrap prices where the Bare Bright Wire type can fetch $2.10/ lb. and the Copper Flashing variant $1.90 to $2.04/lb.
Ballasts Scrap Value Guide:
You could look at a light and question if it’s worth it if you’re throwing away some lights or rebuilding a property and don’t want to discard everything that gets demolished.
These are the factors to consider before selecting whether or not to go ahead and save them.
The Most Important Ballasts –
- The Ballasts are required for both fluorescent and HID (high-intensity discharge) lights to handle the amount of power they produce.
- Ballasts can indeed be worth a few bucks irrespective of age and condition, but they’ll have to be discarded.
- According to current postings, you can usually earn $13 to $20 for an ordinary ballast if you can offer it in good condition. These are in excellent shape.
Ballasts that aren’t worth anything –
- Ballasts that have seen better days ain’t worth as much.
- If it’s less than 45 years old and flickers, buzzes, emits poor lighting and takes a long time to switch on, it’s probably time to break it down for components.
- Most decent ballasts contain a few dollars worth of copper and iron. You may safely remove them, but make sure they don’t include any PCBs before doing so.
PS – If a ballast is broken and no longer works, and there isn’t enough copper in it to make it worthwhile, it may not be worth fixing or trying to extract metal from.
Factors influencing the scrap price of ballast:
No universal rules are there for the factors that affect the ballast reselling and when it comes to price.
Instead, these factors will determine how much ballasts are valuable and how much you may get for them if you decide to sell them.
Some questions to ask quickly –
- Is there any misbehavior from the light?
- What power does it require?
- How much does it take to turn the light on?
- How many different sorts of light can it handle?
- What is the state of it?
Although you are unlikely to have the original packaging when selling it, having access to it can help to improve the item’s worth by making it appear fresher.
Sometimes, something isn’t worth rescuing, or you discover its worthlessness too late.
These are the best ways to safely dispose of ballast if you’re unclear how to do so.
Safety tips while scrapping the ballast –
- If, indeed, the ballast is less than 45 years old and isn’t leaking, feel free to toss it!
- You may take it a step further by putting these ballasts in a trash bag or a cardboard box and dumping them altogether.
- Most legal rules recommend incinerating them if they spill or are longer than forty years. However, this might mean various things in different locations.
- Every location has its waste incinerator, which may or may not be present in yours.
Top places and ways where you can sell your scrapped ballasts:
Understanding who a buyer is and what they want is the greatest method to locate them. So, who are these ballast-seeking buyers?
What are your options for locating them? These are the locations where they shop and where they hang out.
On Auction Sites, Buyers –
- Used ballasts may sell in a couple of days on sites like eBay and Amazon. The average ballast cost was between $10 and $20 when this article was published.
- Depending on the project, this provides you the opportunity to earn enough money to justify dismantling certain lights.
Shoppers Visiting Local Websites –
- These might take longer to sell on local classified sites like Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace, but you can frequently ask for more money for them.
- Some individuals even earn money selling ballasts at flea fairs.
- When looking for ballasts in three large cities (New York, Houston, and Los Angeles), several ballasts ranged in price from $20 to $100, depending on the size of the light fixture required.
- These platforms might help you connect with the proper individuals, even if it seems like a last resort.
A company that recycles electrical equipment –
- Every large city has four to five separate electrical equipment recycling businesses trying to outperform their rivals.
- Unfortunately, because they need to resell the things, these firms aim to buy at the lowest feasible price.
PS – This might be a terrific alternative if you’re keen to sell your products as soon as possible and don’t mind losing a tiny amount of earnings in the process.
Otherwise, it would be best to avoid it since it is a waste of time.
Some other questions,
Related Questions and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Q1.) Who buys the old ballast?
Answer: As per the latest EPA TSCA toxic regulations, one should incinerate the material. For nonleaking ballasts, remove them as scrap or via recycling.
Q2.) What is typical black stuff inside a ballast?
Answer: A black leaking stuff indicates a potting material that acts as a dielectric insulator that prevents the inside components from any arc.
Q3.) Can I throw a ballast away?
Answer: No, only do so if you see NO PCB imprinted on the ballast in the normal trash because ballasts with PCB come under the regulation of US EPA.
Q4.) What is there inside a ballast?
Answer: There is a magnetic blast or a choke that contains the copper wire and such that the magnetic field forming due to the wire sends a directional current to fluorescent light.
Q5.) How can I be certain that a Ballast contains any PCBs or not?
Answer: Well, as per the data from some encyclopedias, Ballasts that were manufactured between 1979 to 1998 had NO PCBs and were labeled such.
So, a ballast must have an inscription of the same.
Q6.) Is ballast universally safe to use?
Answer: No, in fact, they are a universal waste like CFL bulbs, so we must dispose of them properly or face the prediction.
Q7.) How can we open the ballast?
Answer: On both sides of a cover, one can notice certain tabs that catch the fixture slots.
Just squeeze the cover sides inward, which will expose the ballast and their wiring.
Q8.) Do the scrap yards accept the ballasts?
Answer: There are some ballasts, and to find out the best among them, visit your local scrap to ask if they buy them because there are specific companies out there for this.
Q9.) What is a ballast for a boat?
Answer: We know that ballast is the material that can provide stability for any structure, and boats or submarines also hold. It is a compartment that holds water up and down.
Q10.) What is class – P ballast?
Answer: Class P is a typical ballast for fluorescence which includes a specific kind of automatic thermal protector that can discard the ballast like a constant-wattage ballast.
Q11.) What is a ballast rock?
Answer: A ballast rock or a ballast stone is a special stone material whose prime usage is for the construction of railroads with some other useful processes.
Q12.) How much voltage can a ballast be able to put out?
Answer: The fluorescent lamps have standard ballasts that can transform any line voltage for starting and operating a lamp.
Usually, 120 V to 280 V is optimal for the newer fluorescent lamps.
Q13.) How to figure out the age of a ballast?
Answer: It is a five-digit code usually, where the first two digits, like 13, refer to manufacturing year.
13, means 2013; and the next two digits also show the manufacturing week.
Q14.) How much does one need to pay for a replacement ballast?
Answer: A replacement ballast can charge over $10 to $27 based on its capacity or branding.
Q15.) What do the different numbers on a ballast signify?
Answer: When it comes to the advanced ballasts, there are some numbers inscribed on them, such as the T5 and T8 or the T12.
And T stands for Tubular, and the number stands for a diameter of 1/8th in an inch.
Q16.) Can the ballast consume any power as well?
Answer: Well, most ballasts have current flowing via either the Linear fluorescent, HIDs, or Compact ones.
This process is likely to consume around 25% of the lamp’s rating power.
Q17.) What is the shelf life of a ballast?
Answer: Typically, a ballast can easily last for Twelve to Fifteen years of normal usage or around 75000 hours.
Q18.) How many types of ballasts are there in total?
Answer: Currently, you will observe majorly two types of ballasts for each of magnetic and electrical, where magnetic works on the older ballast tech.
HIDs have some HPS lamps which use magnetic ballasts.
Final Verdict:
Is it Possible to Recycle a Ballast?
A fluorescent or LED light’s ballast is an essential component.
It keeps track of how much power is flowing through and ensures that the illumination remains consistent, releasing neither too much nor just enough energy at any given time.
These complex equipment must be expensive to replace once they break down, but many are discarded despite their remaining usefulness.
So, have fun with scrapping.
Thanks For Reading!