When I say I work in scrap metal recycling, people generally think that I am a scrap metal buyer. To my dismay, many people did not know that you could actually get paid to recycle metal. So I’ve decided to explain how scrap metal recycling works and delineate the difference between a scrap buyer and a recycling facility.

Metal Recycling Options

When recycling metal, one has a few options. Aside from aluminum cans, you can’t recycle metal in conventional recycling bins. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways for one to recycle metal.

The city of Houston has several recycling facilities that will take metal scrap off of your hands. The downside is that they do not reimburse you and they do not provide pick up services. This is fine if you are trying to recycle a small quantity of scrap metal, but if you have a larger amount, government-run recycling facilities may not be the ideal choice.

This is where private entities come into play. One can either go to a private scrap metal recycling facility, like Gulf Coast Scrap Metal, or a scrap buyer. Both usually offer the same services — free pick up, wire stripping, and alloy testing. The one downside of going with a scrap buyer is that they may not pay you as much as a recycling facility would. Why is that so? Because the scrap buyers then need to flip the scrap to a recycling facility; they cannot buy the scrap at the same price that they sell it to the recycling facility and still make a profit. Therefore, choosing a private recycling facility will generally give your more cash for your scrap metal!

Just to clarify — we buy AND recycle scrap, all in one shop. Call Gulf Coast Scrap Metal at 713-868-4111 to learn more about our metal recycling services.