re: #350 wrenchwench

The pipes, maybe. When it’s dug out of the ground (or extracted from what used to be waste piles) the price is at a 20-year low. One of the many, many reasons New Mexico is still 49th in things like child poverty.

I know copper wire has been a target of theft over the past few years. Presumably that represents a difference in the cost of processing old versus new, which I would guess might have increased due to safety/environmental regulations or something.

I’m mostly just pulling potentially plausible explanations out of mid-air, which I tend to excel at but can’t back up with specific facts (not without more research) so I should probably just go back to writing.

(And stressing about my fear of heights and the upcoming weekend hike.)