Tips For Collecting Cans To Sell To An Aluminum Recycling Center
Posted on: 12 June 2023
If you generate a lot of aluminum can trash, consider selling it to an aluminum recycling center rather than throwing the empty cans in your curbside trash or recycling container. The cans get recycled either way, but if you take them to an aluminum recycling center yourself, you'll make some money. Here are tips for recycling aluminum cans.
Collect Cans Until You Have Many To Turn In
If you plan to sell your aluminum cans, you'll probably want to collect them over a few months or longer depending on how many cans you collect. You could need several hundred to make the trip to the aluminum recycling center worthwhile, especially if it's a long drive. You can collect them in a bin you have set aside in the garage and bag them when you've saved up a certain weight.
Since you get paid by the pound, if every bag weighs close to the same, it's easy to estimate at a glance how much money your cans are worth. If you'll be storing them for several weeks, it's a good idea to rinse soda and beer cans so the liquid that's trapped inside the cans doesn't draw bugs to your garage. Before you take your first load to the aluminum recycling center, call ahead and ask if there is a minimum weight to drop off and if they have any policies that you need to know in advance.
Smash Cans To Make More Room In Your Bags
Smashing cans isn't too difficult since you can do it with your foot. Rather than having to smash dozens of cans at once, get in the habit of giving a can a quick rinse and then smashing it before you toss the can in the trash container. Smashed cans take up much less space, so you'll get more cans per bag and have fewer bags to take to the aluminum recycling center.
Expand Your Search For Cans
If you drink a lot of beer, seltzer water, or soda in cans, you may be surprised at how quickly you can amass a lot of empty cans. Still, if you get friends and family to help, you'll earn even more. Make it easy for your family to help with your efforts so they'll be more likely to set aside the cans for you. In addition, you might collect cans at parties or trash cans in public places as long as you understand your local laws first.
Dumpster diving is illegal in many places. It may also be illegal to take aluminum cans from a recycling trash can because that could be considered stealing something of value since the city can make money from them. Talk to local officials so you know what cans you can raid and what ones you need to leave alone.
For more info about aluminum scrap recycling, contact a local company.
Share