If your scrap is not separated they will pay like half of what they would if it were clean. Some of them will knock the price down if they find a single rivet or screw, it all depends on what kind of metal you are scraping. I just did some aluminum last week and the prices were way down. I only got 50 for extruded and 40 for rolled, scrap steal was .05 a pound, yellow brass was 1.40, and electric motors were .20 a lb. The scrap guy closest to me is a crook and knocks down everything if there are a few pieces of painted mixed in. I wouldn't have gone down now but my local Country inspector got sick so his replacement gave me 10 days to clean up my pile of metal I have had for 8 years now in my back yard behind my shed. The only reason he even saw the pile was that he was giving a ticket to my neighbor for having his bosses truck in his yard with no plates on it. I ended up with like 150 for what would have been double that two, three years ago. I kept most of my copper and brass and just put them in my sheds. They have free trash pickup where I live so people can throw away anything. I used to ride around looking before eight to a hundred other guys started doing it too, now it's not worth the gas. I still get stuff that I keep while doing handyman work.