Is recycling pop cans profitable at all?
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 e
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.
