Choosing To Live A Little Greener

If you're looking around your home, trying to find things to get rid of and possibly sell, scrap metal from old appliances may have caught your eye. Depending on the type of metal, you could get anywhere from a small amount to a relatively healthy payout. However, you've got more sources of metal in your home than just old appliances. If you're in the middle of a huge cleanout, take a look at everything you're considering donating or throwing out. Some of it may be recyclable as scrap metal.

Cheap Jewelry

You've seen the ads for places that buy gold, but if all you have (or all that you're willing to part with) is costume jewelry, selling for gold isn't likely to happen. If the base metal of the jewelry is something like iron or steel, however, you might be able to add it to your pile of scrap metal. A tiny pair of earrings alone might not be worth much, but you can add it to a pile of similar metal, of course.

Gardening Tools and Office Supplies

Gardening tools, office supplies, old kitchen implements you no longer use — all of these contain metal, and if you can get the metal out (be careful!), you could have a nice pile to take to a scrap yard. Tools have long been the target of thieves trying to grab scrap metal from work sites and contractor vehicles, but an average homeowner doesn't really think about what could be available in those piles of old tools out in the back yard.

If you've got rusty old tools that you never use, those can potentially become scrap metal that you can sell. You may have to remove non-metal parts; talk to scrap yards about that first. And again, one small tool won't get you much. But a pile of metal from different sources could get you some cash.

Old, Worn-Out Accessories

Are you throwing out an old purse that has a rip in the bottom? Remove and save the metal rivets and clasps. Got old hair clips with metal clasps? Try to separate those from the plastic parts of the clip. Remember that metal recyclers deal with many different types of metal, so if you can get a bunch of steel together, for example, that's often a metal that recyclers will buy.

Once you've identified sources of metal, start contacting recyclers to find out which metals they'll take and if they can help you identify unknown metals. Find out if there are minimum amounts that you have to bring in, too. Chances are you have more sellable metal than you realize.

Contact a scrap yard like Gutterman Iron & Metal Corp near you to learn more.