// WIRED US/UK — MOBILE & WEB
The Hottest New Side Hustle Is Stripping Copper Wire and Posting About It
A woman wearing blue overalls and a pink tank top sits on a bench in a workshop lined with tools. Holding a broken copper wire in one hand and a small mechanical tool in the other, she looks at the camera and smiles. “Let’s make money stripping …” she says, pausing for effect. “Wire!”
This play on words is common in a specific corner of TikTok where users document the process of stripping copper wire in order to sell it for extra cash. Most of these creators don't appear to collaborate or use a common hashtag, and they haven’t coined a new term ending in -maxxing. But many of their videos have a similar, visually striking setup: A complex appliance is broken down into bits, or an industrial wire is split like ropes of licorice, and in the end, what’s left is a bundle of glistening amber.
The participants are diverse: Some are hobbyists or electricians looking for extra income. There are also people who claim to be saving for a big purchase, and others who appear to be cash-strapped teenagers. They speak a wide range of languages, including English, French, Spanish, German, and Romanian. At least one has an Etsy shop for selling hand-cast copper bricks, also known as ingots, which are made by pouring molten metal into molds.
Selling scrap copper is nothing new. The metal is relatively scarce, a strong electrical conductor, and fully recyclable—qualities that have made it a particularly valuable scrap metal for centuries. But copper prices reached an all-time high this year, making it an opportune moment for scrappers. In September, according to International Monetary Fund data, copper was worth about $14,473 per metric ton, or about $7.23 per pound, more than double what it was worth in September 2020.
While there’s no reliable data on how often people sell scrap copper, rates of copper theft—often involving metal taken from vehicles, plumbing, building roofs—may offer some clues. Craig Depken II, chair and professor of economics at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, who has studied the phenomenon, says it tends to increase under two conditions.
The first is when the price of copper is increasing, much like it is now. The second is when people’s level of “economic distress” is high enough to make them believe the potential monetary benefits of stealing copper outweigh the risks of getting caught. (It’s legal to sell lawfully obtained copper everywhere in the US except Minnesota, which requires a state-issued license.)
On TikTok, it’s easy to find copper-themed accounts with hundreds of thousands of followers. On TikTok Shop, beginners can even buy their own wire stripper—the small tool that eats a cord and separates copper from its exoskeleton. The most popular option has sold more than 20,000 units globally at the time of writing.
The final price of recycled copper depends on a few factors, including its quality, grade, and whether it’s still “insulated” in plastic or rubber. Insulated copper can go for a fraction of the price of stripped copper, so many resellers remove it themselves to earn more. But even with a wire stripper, the process can be tedious. For some, sharing content about it appears to be a way to make the repetitive task more bearable.
People have posted about hosting a wire-stripping “girls night,” “movie night” and even “date night.” In one video from August, the creator @Payciencu.u strips wire on a bed near a man in a red sweatshirt. “How down bad are you?” reads the text overlay. “Well I’m stripping wire just to hang out with him sooo.”
Other creators treat copper scrapping as a full-on side hustle or hobby, posting time-lapses, tutorials, and lists of the “worst cables to strip for copper.”