Selling Scrap Stainless Steel
It seems like everyone is talking about the high prices of copper and aluminum these days, but selling scrap stainless steel has become quite lucrative as well. Of course, before you begin dismantling all the junk in your back yard to take to the scrap yard, there are a few things you should know about scrap stainless — like the difference between contaminated and uncontaminated metal, or checking out the current ebb and flow of prices. And of course you want to be certain that you are indeed turning in stainless steel, and not just junk.
Locating A Stainless Steel Scrap Yard
Junk metal, the stuff that usually gets brought to the junk yard, is currently being sold around $8-$10 per one hundred pounds in the US, depending on the scrap yard and what part of the country you are in. Real stainless, however, will bring in a lot more. Of course you can’t tell by looking, but stainless steel refers to a steel alloy containing the metal chromium, which is where the word “chrome” comes from. Chromium is used because it resists corrosion, so that rusty run-down metal shed out back is probably not stainless steel. There are different grades of steel, which will affect the price of the metal as well. The most common grade is the 3xx series, or steel in the 300 range, and can be valuable.
Get Top Dollar For Your Stainless Steel Scrap Metal
Just because you have this metal to scrap, however, that may not mean that you will get top dollar for it. Uncontaminated stainless, as you may imagine, will snag a higher price than contaminated stainless steel scrap metal. Contamination usually occurs during fabrication or shipping, due to contact with carbon, salt, or the more common mild steel. Uncontaminated, or clean, stainless scrap is very hard to find. Clean stainless steel is currently averaging $2-$3 per pound in the US, but you can probably expect to make less than that with contaminated metal.
We Buy Scrap Offers Stainless Scrap Recycling
There are a few things you can do to make sure you get the most money possible for your metal. Call around to several scrap yards in your area, if there are several, to get both the current price and the prices from a few days to a week ago. This can help you determine if the prices seem to be going up or down — or in other words, whether to hold onto your scrap stainless steel while the prices rise, or to sell before they go down more. Also, where you live may be a factor in the price you can expect. Bigger cities may have a higher abundance of stainless steel around and will therefore probably pay less than a small town, which will offer more per pound due to the metal’s general unavailability. Worldwide availability of the metal affects the global average prices as well.
In the end, the long and short of it is that some money is better than no money. Chances are good that if you want to make a little extra cash, you will bring any scrap metal to the scrap yard and take the price they give you. But it is a good idea to know what you are bringing — it may be worth more than certain scrap yards want you to think.