Would you like to earn some extra money? Prices paid for scrap metal have greatly increased, making a few pounds of scrap turn into enough money to fill up your tank.
The price of scrap copper has increased from $1 to $3 a pound, while aluminum cans have gone up from 30 cents a pound to 80 cents a pound. Increasingly, frugal people are turning to scrap metal collection to put gas in their cars and pay for the increase in food prices.
Collecting scrap metal and then selling it is not as hard as it sounds. You can simply save any aluminum cans you might otherwise recycle and sell those. You can hunt through your garage and home for scrap metal that you can sell. When you are renovating your home, set aside anything that could be sold. Some examples of items that can be sold for scrap metal include pipes, wiring, shower door frames and aluminum window frames.
And you can also find discarded scrap metal available for free.
How do you find free scrap metal? One sure way is to find out when your area towns are hosting their bulk trash days. Very often you’ll find tons of scrap metal that is being tossed out for the garbage collectors. Arrive early the night before, since there will be a lot of competition. You can also cruise around your local area on the night before regular garbage pick up to find items.
Farm equipment can yield a lot of scrap metal. Offer to take an old rotting piece of equipment off someone’s hands, and you could earn hundreds of dollars.
Recycling centers that pay for scrap metal are doing a brisk business right now and more and more of them are popping up all over the country. Some centers even pay for paper. In fact, the price of scrap is so high, that it is sparking thefts in many areas. Several states are addressing the issue with new laws that require the dealers to hold on to items for a set time period to ensure that the items aren’t reported missing. In our case, we had a television antenna stolen by a chimney sweep! There is a lot of scrap to be found just around your home.
Do you have an old radiator or metal swing set? Turn it in for some extra gas money.
Click here for more articles by Mary Ann Romans.
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