[hackerspaces] Forming relationships with local material suppliers for cut-offs and the like

[Lokkju Brennr]

I'm curious if any of you have tried forming on-going relations with
local companies that might generate essentially "scrap" sizes of
plastic, metal, and glass sheeting/pipe/billet/etc?  I'm considering
reaching out to a few companies, and any input from people who've done
it would be welcome.  I'm mostly just looking to get raw materials,
since most of our projects are small enough that they can use
short/small pieces, which I know are commonly cut off and thrown
away...

The two places I'm looking at a right now are a plastic
machining/extruding company, and a metal extruding company.
Obviously, espeically with the metal, we'd need to pay them at least
the recycling weight value, but that would be massively cheaper then
the cost of, say, extruded aluminum - and when we can easily use their
1'-2' cut off lengths just fine...

input welcome, obviously,

Loki // BrainSilo.org