Stainless steel has been discussed many times but always warrants a revisit. There are different types of stainless steel, but one of the biggest things we stress is making sure the stainless steel is CLEAN. Cleaning stainless steel is one of the bigger problems when scrapping. Let’s take a dishwasher, for example.
What Makes Clean Stainless Steel?
Dishwashers have a rubber/plastic liner around them, but sometimes, the inner shell is clean. You may take a dishwasher apart and find sprayed-on rubber, and you may think that the scrap yard will not consider it dirty because it is not very heavy…but it will be dirty, and that will be a problem for you when you go to cash in.
What Makes Dirty Stainless Steel?
Because of all the attachments and contaminants in stainless steel, dirty stainless is priced 50-90% below the clean stainless price. It would help if you never wasted too much time cleaning stainless when pressed on or riveted together because even those small pieces of steel will still downgrade your pricing.
Remember, there are many different grades of stainless steel scrap, but the more common ones are 304 and 316. If you don’t know what grade you have, ask your scrap yard if they can test it so you know how to separate the different kinds before they are weighed.
Questions about your clean or dirty steel?
Just let us know, and we will help you get an answer soon.
