Why You Should Clean Up Dirty Aluminum Scrap

dirty aluminum scrap metal and engine blocks

A great topic to go over is dirty aluminum. When scrap yards take material in, they look at how clean it is and how difficult it will be to sell the item that they are buying. When something like an aluminum engine block comes in scrap, it might be an easy thing to look at and immediately say, “Wow, that is almost all aluminum,” but then you look at that engine and see all types of steel sticking out of it, and you have to reconsider it all.

Cleaning Dirty Aluminum Engine Blocks for Scrap

Dirty items can have glue, rubber, steel, and other metals like stainless or wood attached to them. When you try to sell these items to a scrap yard, you have to look around and really think to yourself about how hard it is to clean.

Most of the time, Aluminum is a great material (most of the time) because you can cut it and ensure it is clean when you sell it to your local scrap yard. We have talked about this many times, but having clean material will benefit both your wallet and the scrap yard that you are selling to because the transaction will go a lot smoother when every grade of scrap is sorted.

When you are looking at some of the pieces and parts of a car for scrap, there are so many options. Whether you scrap the unit as a whole or take it apart for scrap, looking at easy pieces that can be cleaned up for a higher scrap value is a good idea. Aluminum engine blocks and transmissions are a good place to look for aluminum scrap. You can remove the different materials to make more money on your scrap metal.