Is recycling pop cans profitable at all?

It can be if you collect a lot of them.

Recycling Soda Cans

It depends on what you have in mind. If you're walking or biking around collecting cans you will make some money, but it won't be very much, especially compared to working a "real" job. You need to collect about 16 cans to make one pound of aluminum. At this very moment's best market rate (for a full 52' long truckload of aluminum) you would make 34 cents per pound.

Suppose you wanted to make $100 from aluminum can recycling. At 34 cents a pound you would need to collect 294 pounds of aluminum which equals 4,705 cans. How quickly do you think you can collect those cans? To make $10 in an hour, you would need to collect 470 cans.

The only people making money from recycling soda cans are large scale companies that can collect and process large amounts of aluminum.

This doesn't mean that you shouldn't collect cans. I find it an enjoyable hobby. I used to when I was very young and getting a couple of dollars from turning in cans was like a fortune. I also collected cans for a while in my early 20's, because I used to take a lot of walks anyway. It was more of a side piece of getting exercise then trying to make money.

It would depend on where you live and how many cans you can collect.

Here in Maine we get 5 cents back per soda can we turn in at a recycling place. Does your state offer something similar? If so, then by all means, yes, it could be very worth it.

However, if you are looking to collect to sell as junk, then .35 per pound is not much money at all. It would work out even worse if you are planning to drive a car around to collect cans...

But, either way you do it, recycling is great for the environment.

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RE:

Is recycling pop cans profitable at all?

Is it even worth it to collect pop cans and then sell them to a recycling plant?

There are companies that make a lot of money doing this. But you have to do it on a very large scale. For an individual, it's not profitable unless you're really desperate (I've seen homeless people doing it to make a little extra cash). It's usually done more for the principle than the money.

I'm pretty sure you could make more going to work but me personally I keep a separate garbage pail for aluminum and it is no more difficult putting it in there than putting it in the landfill and when that pail gets full I take a trip and get paid $15 to $20

I do it here at the house and i just throw the money in my jug for christmas it's not a lot and you won't get rich but it adds up quicker than you would think if your family drinks a lot of pop

There's a guy in my city that rides his bike everywhere and collects bags of cans. He owns a decent house and has a family. I know that some of his income comes from collecting cans. In the meantime, he's getting exercise and cleaning up the city in the process.

My neighbor collects them in Texas...she took in 7 large black garbage bags@ .75 a pound and got 120.00.

I definately think thats worth it.

I know the price here has dropped to .34 a pound now tho.

We have been saving them for months and I just called RDS and they no longer pay for them!!!! I have great timing huh? We decided to keep them until the metal prices go back up. Hopefully it is worth it.

Good Luck!