Being roughly 220 miles from the closest body of ocean (salt) water, it is difficult to think, while being here in Tucson, that their might be tons of untapped scrap metal lying at the bottom of the ocean floor, just waiting to be plucked, separated and sold. Actually sounds like fun, even more it sounds like treasure hunting. Well, if you think about it, isn’t that what most scrappers do on a regular basis? We comb locally known areas looking for a haul or score that someone just wants to get rid of or through away? Scrap metal in the ocean, couldn’t be to to difficult. Not if the reports of our seas being filled with trash sadly enough, after it is all said and done, there is probably enough junked scrap in the seas to make a tidy profit. Alas, there is not enough boat fuel in the world, to take the time to dredge every square mile. There is another option though.
Sunken Boats
There are a couple of ways to search the seas for scrap…piece by piece with a metal detector, or the big haul, sunken boats and ships. Now lets be realistic for a minute. If last week, you were driving around town looking for old washers an dryers to break down and sell, your probably not equipped for a large scale deep sea dive for sunken ships either. The typical ship can withstand the challenges of the sea for about 25 to 30 years before it will need to be replaced. Most are sold to larger scrap metal companies on the coast. The ones that are sunk off of shallow coast are the most interesting, or even the ones lost in major Hurricanes or tropical storms. Really though, those may be too large for you and a partner to get down to and start hacking away, plus what if someone has claim to it, and you end up being a poacher. That my friend would be hot water. The truth is, the easiest way to hunt scrap in the ocean is to use a metal detector on and off the beach. There are numerous metal detectors used for diving and some that are land /water combo’s for shallow use.