Your scrapyard deals with all sorts of metals. The ferrous mainstays, iron and steel, eventually prove their worth in sheer volume alone. But it’s the non-ferrous metals that you and your magnets are really looking for. Brass, zinc, copper, lead, and tin all offer value to recyclers. To that list, add aluminum, the lightweight but deceptively strong metal that goes into everything from soda cans to airplanes.

Unlike iron, aluminum pays well by weight, and like any other metal, there’s only so much aluminum in the ground, and keeping extant aluminum in circulation is paramount to reducing mining. Examine these top reasons to recycle aluminum and learn why you should be happy to receive this metal at your yard.

It’s Infinitely Recyclable

Just like copper, another metal that’s in high demand in the scrapping industry, there’s no limit to how many times manufacturers can reuse aluminum. Extracting and processing new aluminum from raw materials is an invasive process, and the costs of labor and energy far outpace the costs of recycling existing material. Consumer products that use aluminum can seem flimsy and inconsequential, but as that aluminum adds up in the landfill, it represents a tragic loss of natural resources.

Reduce Emissions

The state of our atmosphere is something that should always be on our minds. Processing bauxite ore, the raw material that gives us the aluminum we use, emits carbon dioxide gas at a 1:1 ratio with the aluminum itself. The effects of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, have severe ramifications on climate change and our quality of life. Ensuring that aluminum winds up at scrapyards and not landfills takes that CO2 out of our air.

It’s More Than Worth Its Weight

Warm feelings about the environment aside, scrapping is a business. The top reason to recycle aluminum is cold, hard cash. Though prices fluctuate, aluminum can return between 20 and 45 times as much per pound as steel. With aluminum being more plentiful than trickier metals like zinc or tin, this can add up fast. So flip the switch on your 24-volt scrap yard magnet and start clearing the ferrous metals out. You can get to the good stuff.