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You guys that have large amounts of cans, what are you keeping them in? I don't crush mine. I did in the beginning, but it doesn't pay any more and is more effort than it's worth. To me anyway. I found that garbage bags fell apart after a few week in the sun, plus there is the cost of the bags. They tended to collect water during heavy rains. and they were a pain to deal with. A couple of years back I broke down and built six wire bins to store them in. Uncrushed, combined, they hold just over 100lbs total.They typicall don't collect water, but when they do you simply put the top cover on the basket and roll them on their side and most of that comes out. No more sticky messes. They are about 27" around and 4 feet tall. I would have built more, but that is basically all that I can fit in the back of the truck. The trailer is for the other stuff.

I hear ya on not being worth the time to crush them, that is clear, but I get plenty of sweat and exercise collecting on bike and crushing to help justify it some. Mine are crushed on an anvil, which of course achieves a super thin crushed product, allowing me to store 13-14 lbs per 13 gallon plastic bag (doubled to prevent any tear-throughs). I store them inside the garage, so I have no contentions with the outside elements.

I have chickens and dogs. Feed sacks work good for me, they are pretty tuff, and after dumping at the scrap yard, I keep em' and carry them back home to use again. You might want to lay an old sheet of tin or something over your wire bins, to help with the water.

It's not a big problem. Once I put the top on and tilt the bin over, only a few cans might have water in them. But what I would really like to find though is a top that I can easily removed. Right now it's just another piece of the same rabbit fence. The problem is, I have to twist lose pieces of wire to secure it to the rest of the bin. Kind of a pain to remove 6 of them when I get to the yard.

If you are storing cans for a long time I don't see how you can't crush them, takes up less space! I go to the yard several times a month and still crush them!

Took my fathers 128 lbs of alum cans to a new place in town that was paying $.81 a pound with coupon. A quick $103.68

I store cans uncrushed in plastic bags. I never have that many of them, so I use them to fill the excess space in the truck when I make a trip to the scrapyard.

70 cents a lb. here yesterday. The highest price this year was 80 cents last month. This time last year it was only 30 cents.

$.75 a lb yesterday in NW GA.

If I don't crush them, my family and I get nasty surprises such as bees and/or ants taking residence in them.

Neighbor kids have much more energy to squash them than I do. They have contests to see how many they can crush in one minute. Fortunately no injuries ever caused in their excitement.

$.70 today in western WA State

Crushing them takes time...and as we all know, time is money. I keep uncrushed and just recycle when necessary.

$.81 for them in Tucson AZ Today

I got 40 cents per lb today here in Maryland.

60 cents/pound in middle GA,

I crush as I go - makes sense to me unless you happen upon a big load of Al

55 cents/lb in eastern Missouri.

I bought a trash compactor on craigslist for 40 bucks. It sits the the garage. I throw my empties in a crush as I go.

Thogey wrote:I bought a trash compactor on craigslist for 40 bucks. It sits the the garage. I throw my empties in a crush as I go.

That's a great idea. I'll have to start looking for one.

messymessy wrote:

Thogey wrote:I bought a trash compactor on craigslist for 40 bucks. It sits the the garage. I throw my empties in a crush as I go.

That's a great idea. I'll have to start looking for one.

+1

And then when it gives up you can scrap it!

thaler wrote:I have chickens and dogs. Feed sacks work good for me, they are pretty tuff, and after dumping at the scrap yard, I keep em' and carry them back home to use again. You might want to lay an old sheet of tin or something over your wire bins, to help with the water.

I do the same. I have a horse so I keep the paper feed sacks (not to mention get quite a few from my neighbors also) and put crushed cans in there. I wait until I have around 15 or so, then crush them. It only takes a few seconds, then put them in the feed sack. A lot less room as I tend to keep them until the price goes up. It is down to .65 around here.

01GTB wrote:You guys that have large amounts of cans, what are you keeping them in? I don't crush mine.

I just bale them up and stack them outside. When the stack gets too big I have a truck come and pick them up.

$.60 a lb in NW GA.

$0.65/lb here in the middle of the Midwest. I don't want to make a career out of smashing empty cans, but do use the two-second top and bottom pinch on each. They're not flat, but that greatly reduces their space. Basic tests here have shown me that action increases a 30 gal bag can capacity by 5 lbs.

This all begs the question, though, whether we can trust the scales used by the local aluminum scrap buyers.

I weigh them with a fishing scale. Avg weight 21 lbs crushed fills a 33 gal bag. Scary part is if it takes 34.35 cans to make a pound thats 721 Miller Lites

seems like all the can buyers in tucson are in cahoots. one drops a couple cents and they all rush to lower their offer. so , now the one place that has not dropped. is so swamped, it is hard to get in .