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What will scrap yards not take?

Kathryn Kellogg
Recycling Educator
Kathryn Kellogg is the founder of goingzerowaste.com, a lifestyle website dedicated to breaking eco-friendly living down into a simple step-by-step process with lots of positivity and love. She's the author of 101 Ways to Go Zero Waste and spokesperson for plastic-free living for National Geographic.

Kathryn Kellogg

Recycling Educator

Expert Answer

Make sure to recycle electronics with an appropriate facility. There are a lot of precious metals in our phones, so your old electronics can be very valuable. However, they also contain hazardous wastes, so it's important to make sure you're selling them to someone who's certified to deal with those wastes.

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Question

How do I separate metals that have melted together?

Community Answer

It depends on the metals. For some, it isn't (realistically) possible. However, if it is possible, it will likely fall into one of a few categories. If your metals are of different densities, then you can melt them and siv the lighter metal off the top. Chemically, if one of the metal is reactive with a certain substance and the other is not, then exposing it to that substance will pull out one of the metals. In some cases, hydrolysis will be able to separate alloys that have been melted down.

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Question

Can I scrap cast-iron frying pans?

Community Answer

Yes. Remove rubber, any bright trim etc. Identify bright silvery trim and sell that separately. Scrapyards will take washed cast-iron pans once anything non-iron has been removed.

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Can all aluminum be scraped together or do I have to separate say aluminum siding from aluminum window frames?

Snakeeyes22

Community Answer

There are different grades of aluminum but for the most part, keep all of the aluminum together. But if you are in a state or country with a bottle bill (California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Oregon, and Vermont), you should save all of your aluminum cans to deposit for much more money.

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