Aluminum can scrapping - food & pet food cans?

[treasurekidd]

A question for the experts. When cashing in aluminum beer and soda cans at a scrap yard, is it ok to have aluminum food cans mixed in with them? Things like pet food cans tend to have that white plastic lining on the inside, does that make them different from beer and soda cans for scrapping purposes? Also, how about aluminum foil type take-out food containers like the attached pic?

I know all of these can be recycled through my towns recycling program, but for cashing these in as scrap metal, should I just mix them together, separate them, or keep the food/pet food cans out altogether? Thank you!

 

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[pepperj]

A question for the experts. When cashing in aluminum beer and soda cans at a scrap yard, is it ok to have aluminum food cans mixed in with them? Things like pet food cans tend to have that white plastic lining on the inside, does that make them different from beer and soda cans for scrapping purposes? Can I just mix them together, separate them, or keep the food/pet food cans out altogether? Thank you!

It depends on where you are scrapping out the cans.
Some States have a deposit for beer cans-but not soda.

If it's straight scrap value then separate the cat food cans from the soda/beer cans.
Labels removed, washed out completely.

The pet food containers have a different liner than the soda/beer containers.

Price will be in the old pot/cooking category which fall into a pricing of contaminated aluminum.
Used tin foil containers are a hit miss item.
Some yards don't deal in the product as it's contaminated with food.
Hard to process.
Every yard has a set of different categories for the aluminum scrap.

The best advice for you is to get a sample of what you are going to be recycling.
Go to the yard and get a quote.
This way there's no hard feelings when you get there expecting dollars for your hard work and you get cents.
UBC (Used Beverage Cans)
Is for pop/soda/beer.
From owning a yard for 13yrs, I learnt ask first before buying and selling the product.
Scrap 101.

 

[treasurekidd]

It depends on where you are scrapping out the cans.
Some States have a deposit for beer cans-but not soda.

If it's straight scrap value then separate the cat food cans from the soda/beer cans.
Labels removed, washed out completely.

The pet food containers have a different liner than the soda/beer containers.

Price will be in the old pot/cooking category which fall into a pricing of contaminated aluminum.
Used tin foil containers are a hit miss item.
Some yards don't deal in the product as it's contaminated with food.
Hard to process.
Every yard has a set of different categories for the aluminum scrap.

The best advice for you is to get a sample of what you are going to be recycling.
Go to the yard and get a quote.
This way there's no hard feelings when you get there expecting dollars for your hard work and you get cents.
UBC (Used Beverage Cans)
Is for pop/soda/beer.
From owning a yard for 13yrs, I learnt ask first before buying and selling the product.
Scrap 101.

Thank you, that’s great info! I’ll just stick to soda and beer cans.

 

[pepperj]

Thank you, that’s great info! I’ll just stick to soda and beer cans.

If you have any questions on what some is (Meaning grade of scrap) or how to gleam a better price, or how to max. the $$$ from a product, just ask.
There's no problem helping out folks.

 

[Brian B]

Also every yard/region is different. My local yards will put cat food cans in with pop/beer cans. One used to separate them but no longer. i also just sold copper and had my bare bright separated from some wire that was oxidized and had turned green. They said no need it's all bare bright. Which I don't think is normal in most places.