Nevada carbide scrap, collected from Henderson to West Wendover

Nevada has 12 charter cities and 7 general law cities, according to the Legislative Counsel Bureau's 2016 report on state and local government. That makes 19, and we pick up in every one of them.

• Charter cities: Boulder City, Caliente, Carlin, Carson City, Elko, Henderson, Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, Reno, Sparks, Wells and Yerington.
• General law cities: Ely, Fallon, Fernley, Lovelock, Mesquite, West Wendover and Winnemucca.

A Nevada community needs at least 1,000 residents to incorporate, and places that never incorporated are not on that list. Our pickup runs across all of Nevada, so an unincorporated town, a ranch shop or a mine site is on the map too.

GOED, the Governor's Office of Economic Development, calls Southern Nevada the largest economic engine in the state. It says Northern Nevada, anchored by the Reno-Sparks area, has grown into a center for advanced manufacturing, warehousing and technology over the past decade.

Sources: Nevada Legislative Counsel Bureau, Policy and Program Report (April 2016); Nevada GOED 2025 Annual Report.

Nevada's rules for scrap metal processors are in NRS Chapter 647. The chapter defines scrap metal as nonferrous metals, scrap iron, stainless steel, and metal material or equipment used in construction, agriculture, electric power generation and distribution, cable and telecommunications, railroad equipment, oil well rigs or lights the state or a local government maintains. It does not name tungsten or carbide. It defines junk separately, as old iron, copper, brass, lead, zinc, tin, steel and other metals, and junk excludes scrap metal. The statute does not say which one machine-shop carbide is.

Where the scrap metal rules apply, this is what they ask:

• Payment. A purchase worth $150 or more is paid "only by check or electronic transfer of money", and a check to a business seller is made out to the business. A processor may not do more than one cash transaction under $150 with one seller in a single day.
• ID. A state or US territory ID card or driver's license, a US military ID, or another ID accepted under NRS 237.200.
• Photo and fingerprint. A photo, video or digital record of the seller, and the print of the right index finger, or another finger if that one is not available.
• Records. The delivery vehicle's plate and description, a description of the scrap by industry standards, the price paid, and a photo or video of each purchase kept on site for at least 60 days.
• Receipt. The seller gets a receipt on site with the date, time and place, a description and the weight, the price, a copy of the ID and the vehicle's license number.
• Reporting and holds. Where local police run an electronic reporting system, processors send in the previous day's purchases from individuals before noon each business day. An officer may place a written hold of up to 7 business days on related property and extend it once by up to 7 more.

That is what paying cash where state law allows comes to in Nevada: where these rules apply, a sale under $150 can be cash, one such sale per seller per day, and anything at $150 or more goes by check or electronic transfer. The scrap metal laws guide lines NRS 647 up against the California, Arizona and Utah rules.

Sources: Nevada Revised Statutes, Chapter 647.