BANGOR – The rusted hulk of a truck that James Kimball was hauling on Saturday was not exactly easy on the eyes. But this one-of-a-kind homemade rig was about to put a few hundred dollars in Kimball’s pocket.

The truck cab was a vintage International probably from the 1940s. It had a dump truck’s rear end, airplane tires on the back, a bright-red horsehair seat, and a contraption on the front that could only have served as a winch.

The hulk was used to haul wood for years before coming to rest in a friend’s yard. But on Saturday, Kimball estimated this old truck, which had trees growing through it a few days earlier, would net him $300 at the Industrial Metal Recycling scrap yard in Bangor after accounting for his expenses.

“I’ve been doing this ever since I can remember,” Kimball said.

He has plenty of company these days. Global demand for metal is turning what was considered backyard trash just a few years ago into a valuable cash commodity. The proof can be seen in the long lines of customers and mountains of metals at scrap yards throughout Maine.

“The trend has been absolutely crazy,” said Peter McAvoy of Smorgon Steel Recycling, which operates the Industrial Metal Recycling facility where Kimball was hauling his truck on Saturday. “The commodities have just taken off with the growth in China and India.”

Prices for copper, steel, iron, aluminum and other industrial metals have risen dramatically in recent years due in large part to increasing demand and surging energy costs.

The boom in scrap metal has happened so fast that recycling centers have struggled to keep pace. A few years ago, middlemen often bought or picked up junk metal from homeowners and hauled it to scrap yards in larger quantities.

Then the average consumer caught on.

Instead of one truck with 10,000 pounds of metal, McAvoy said he now gets 10 trucks with 1,000 pounds of metal. As a result, Smorgon Steel Recycling is adding another truck scale and building a new office, expanding its storage capacity and paving part of the yard at its Bangor operation.

McAvoy estimated the company’s four facilities in Maine average 1,300 customers a day, with the biggest crush on weekends.

“People started camping out there and having tailgate parties,” McAvoy said.

Things got so busy at Newport Metals that the company actually had to close on Saturdays because it couldn’t keep up. The company also operates a scrap yard in Oakland and is preparing to open a new facility in Belfast.

“With the huge rush we had this spring, we were filling up so quickly,” said Darcy Armstrong-Erb, office manager at Newport Metals. “The guys, you can’t make them work 24 hours a day.”

Some people, such as Brian Ouellette and Chris Carroll, cash in on scrap metal to help pay the rising costs of living in Maine.

On Saturday, Ouellette and Carroll were hauling two trucks full of assorted metal, an old Honda Civic well past its prime and a beat-up industrial door that Carroll bought off someone Saturday who didn’t feel like waiting in line. He paid $15 but expected to get at least $20 when he finally got to the scales.

“That’s five bucks,” Carroll said.

“I’ve been junking for years,” added Ouellette. “You’ve got to do it nowadays to pay the bills.”

And then there are the full-time junk hunters. Doug Cray of Brewer, who has been cashing in on metals for about seven months, typically takes about two trips a day to the scrap yard. Prices vary depending on the metal, but Cray said he has made more than $1,000 on a load before.

“You keep your eye open and you’ll see a refrigerator on the side of somebody’s garage,” Cray said. “You ask them and they said, ‘I’d love to get rid of it.'”

Cray, who was being ably assisted on Saturday by his 8-year-old daughter, Ashley, said he acquires all of his scrap the right way: by getting permission and usually paying the owner. He is livid that people who steal scrap are giving him and other recycling entrepreneurs a bad name.

Unfortunately, not everyone follows the same standards. Construction companies, businesses, homeowners and municipalities are reporting a significant increase in thefts of copper, aluminum and other increasingly valuable metals. Police report that thieves are often going to considerable lengths to get their hands on metal products.

For instance, last December someone stole nearly 4 miles of underground copper wire used to power lights along one of Portland’s walking trails. Police speculated that the job was so complicated – and dangerous – that the thief or thieves likely had some electrical training.

Camp owners have returned to find the copper piping used to run their gas lamps or refrigerators gone. Catalytic converters are disappearing out of cars throughout the state. Thieves even stole aluminum bleachers from stadiums in Corinth and Levant.

Even sacred sites are being plundered for metal. Last winter, two men were observed filling 5-gallon buckets with pieces of the wreckage of the B-52 Stratofortress that crashed on Elephant Mountain near Moosehead Lake in 1963, killing seven servicemen.

In fact, this latest version of grave robbing is occurring nationwide. In West Virginia, thieves stole $18,000 worth of vases bolted to headstones. In Washington state, it was bronze markers on veterans’ graves. In Chicago, it was nearly half a million dollars’ worth of brass ornaments.

Maine state lawmakers responded earlier this year by passing a bill, which subsequently was signed into law, requiring all scrap metal dealers to record the name and address of any seller who brings in more than 100 pounds or $50 worth of metal.

Scrap yards also keep a detailed description of the items that were sold in case police need help tracking a theft. McAvoy of Smorgon Steel Recycling said his company recently spent about $250,000 on a new computer system, cameras and other equipment to help monitor incoming scrap as well as to keep thieves from pilfering their metal yards. The company also works closely with police.

The booming scrap metal business also has other implications, some positive and some negative. Junked cars used to fetch less than $100 a ton in Maine. Now, with prices at $200 a ton, people are bringing in older cars as scrap that might have lived on for another year or two in the hands of the right person.

“It’s going to help increase energy efficiency because a lot of these are older cars with bad efficiency,” McAvoy said. “But it’s really killed the people who are used to paying $300 to $400 for an old clunker, fixing it up and driving it for a year.”

Back on the positive side, however, piles of old junk left rusting in the woods, in illegal dumps on rural roadsides or in grandpa’s backyard are disappearing at a rapid rate. And that metal is being reinvented as new products.

“I can definitely say we are doing our part cleaning up the state,” Armstrong-Erb said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.