4 Tips for New Scrap Collectors

When an appliance breaks down, or when it's time to finally retire that beat-up old car, you can sell the metal as scrap metal. Not only is this a great way to make money, but scrap metal can be recycled with less energy consumption than processing raw metal. This helps keep money in your pocket and reduce carbon emissions.

If you would like to know more about getting started in scrap metal, check out these four tips you should know.

1. Get a Magnet

As you may know, magnets are attracted to certain metals, causing them to stick to the metal. This happens because the metal contains iron, making it a ferrous metal. Non-ferrous metals contain no iron, and they don't attract magnets. Therefore, a magnet will stick to your stainless-steel fridge, but it won't stick to your gold ring.

Non-ferrous metals include aluminum, copper, lead, tin, silver, brass, gold, and zinc. Ferrous metals include steel, stainless steel, carbon steel, cast iron, and wrought iron. As you can see, non-ferrous metals are more precious than ferrous ones. In turn, this means you get more money for scrapping non-ferrous metal than you do ferrous. Therefore, if you must limit how much metal you collect, stick to non-ferrous metals. 

2. Learn About Various Metals and Prices     

Even after you identify the non-ferrous metals, you should be able to distinguish between various non-ferrous metals because some are much more valuable than others are. Gold, for example, earns you more money than tin, but both are still more valuable than stainless steel and other ferrous metals.

Ultimately, you want to sort the metal for two reasons. First, metal is often weighed by the pound, and everything is lumped together if you don't separate it. If most of the pile of metal is tin, but you have some gold mixed in, you'll lose money. The gold will be lumped in with the tin and paid at the price of tin per pound. 

You should also sort your metal because prices change. If you monitor the prices, you know when it's time to take in your tin because the price is high. If you don't keep your metal sorted, it may be too hard to get it ready in one day before the price changes.

3. Clean and Store the Scrap Properly

It's best to clean your metal before you store it or take it in to sell. Cleaning helps you better identify the metal, but you may also get more money. Some scrap metal buyers pay more for clean scrap metal because it saves them some extra work. If you have too much debris (such as non-metal attachments), you should remove them. The scrap company may not even take them since the non-metal will add to the weight.

You want to store your metal so you can take in a bunch at once. For the most part, you want to keep the scrap metal secure and safe from the elements, especially water. Water can cause the metal to rust, and rust reduces the quality and value of the metal. Keeping it secure also prevents the risk of theft or angry neighbors.

4. Learn Where to Find Scrap Metal

There are many places to find scrap metal. You can start at your house, especially if you are going through a renovation or getting rid of a lot of old appliances or metal items. You can also offer to take any scrap metal from family and friends. If they don't collect scrap metal, they may be happy to let you have it for free, so they don't have to take it to the dump.

Old vehicles are another great place to find scrap metal, and so are construction sites. Make sure you get any written permission before taking any garbage or scrap metal. Other places to find scrap metal include shooting ranges, hospitals, craigslist, dumpsters, and local businesses.

Scrap metal can help make you a bit of pocket cash, but it's also beneficial for the environment. To make the most money, you will need to do a little research, but even a magnet can help. If you would like to know more, contact us at Big Daddy Scrap today.