I just got paid $____ per pound for aluminum cans! - Page 9

quarter a pound, hasn't changed in a year.

$.50 / lb today

What a waste of time@.45 cents a pound North of Orlando. Someone is making almost double on my labor.

.59 a pound here in South Jersey.

Was just quoted $0.38/pound by a local yard. Got $0.45/lb back in October at my main yard.

Here in Mesa there are Mexican buyers near by that are paying $1.00 a pound for cans. One guy told me if we crush them he will pay $1.10 a pound. The scrap yard I sell shred steel to pays about 40 cents a pound for cans. The Mexicans are paying 45 cents a pound for plastic bottles.

Just went this morning.... Still .50 a lb here in Southern NJ. Got $2.10 for Copper #1 $1.40 for Copper #2 and .35 for sheet aluminum. Was very dissapointed they wouldn't take my aluminum pie plates and foil. Had a bunch of it. Will go back to old scrap yard that took it.

Quoted $0.40 per lb. for cans from two different yards. I'll hold them for that price.

Originally Posted by hobo finds

California sucks.

It turns out that while many folks think of the 5-or-10-cent California Refund Value (CRV) as a deposit, it is, in fact, no such thing. To wit:

“The charge for California Redemption Value (CRV) is not a deposit, but a fee imposed on the distributor of the beverage,” the state explains. “The fee is passed along to the retailer and to you as the consumer. Although separately stated, the fee is subject to tax as part of the taxable selling price of the beverage.”

And now they make it harder for to get your fee refunded to you..... and you paid tax on it as well!

Maine may be similar to Cali. We've got RVM's ( Reverse vending machines ) at work. The way it works is that the customer puts a can or bottle in the machine and gets a ticket for five cents. They redeem the ticket with the cashier at the store and get their five cents.

We're like the middleman and get an additional " handling fee " of 3.5 - 4 cents per bottle. (Our margin is limited by law.)

So ... we gross about 8.5 cents per bottle.

Deduct the five cents we gave the customer. ( That brings us down to 3.5 cents )
Deduct three cents per bottle that we pay to the company that provides our RVM. ( That brings us down to . 5 cents net profit. )
That half cent doesn't cover our remaining expenses like labor, electricity, and supplies.

Our bottle redemption operation is quite likely running at a loss. We're just running it as a community service and use the profits from other parts of the company to cover our losses.

I can see why redemption centers in Cali are closing. It's the same here in Maine. We lost quite a few last winter.

It's complicated but the bottom line is that the deposit is the deposit. Our margin -or- "handling fee" is built into the cost of that beverage.

* rant * The thing that frustrates me to no end is that it is a complicated system. My boss thinks we're making 8.5 cents a bottle because that's what he sees when the RVM company sends us a check at the end of the month.He doesn't comprehend the expense end of the equation yet. The other thing that frustrates me to no end is that there's a lot of labor involved even though the RVM's do most of the work. It's at least two or three hours of cleaning and maintenance work every shift. I'm constantly muttering under my breath ... those ****ed bottle machines need my attention again

The one thing i will say is that it's good for the scrappers. Poor folk with kids that don't have very much regularly pull up with a truckload of bottles that they've collected. They take their slips into the store and that's enough to buy dinner that night. The parents are earning the money to feed their kids. That's a good thing isn't it ?

The other thing is that the bottles often get donated to charity. At work, we're helping to raise funds to support the local animal shelter. The local transfer station has raised close to 100k. to support college scholarships for the local kids. The scholarship fund is on track to become self sustaining in a few years.

So ... alot more than anyone would ever want or need to know about those **** bottles. I've definitely got a love / hate thing going on with em'. They're a royal pain in my arse but i can see some good coming from it all as well.