Collecting cans more lucrative with high aluminum prices

By Dan Nienaber

NORTH MANKATO — They probably made a lot more money selling hot beef sandwiches at the park during North Mankato Fun Days this year, but for the Boy Scouts the annual job of collecting aluminum cans at the end of the Fun Days parade was likely more lucrative than it has been in the past.

For about eight years now, Troop 29 has brought up the tail of the parade. After all the fun is over, its members encourage spectators to toss their aluminum cans into a big basket towed behind a pickup truck.

“We put a basketball hoop on the trailer,” said Duane Rader, a scout leader who helps organize the troop’s parade presence each year. “Everybody loves to shoot at that.”

At 65 cents a pound locally, or nearly two cents per can, aluminum can prices are at an average high for the past five years. That’s making the trip to can recycling centers more profitable for people who save their pop and beer containers instead of throwing them in the garbage.

It also provides an incentive for Fun Days organizers to encourage vendors to sell beer and soft drinks in cans instead of plastic bottles, said Denny Kemp, Fun Days organizer.

Aluminum cans are more likely to be cleaned up at the end of the weekend because they’re worth money, he said. That means lower profit margins for vendors, but less work for cleaning crews.

“We’ve chosen to go with aluminum cans because they’re self cleaning,” Kemp said. “It’s a much tidier way to handle it.”

Troop 29 also collects cans throughout the year at five donation points in Mankato and North Mankato. Troop members take turns each week collecting the cans and turning them in for cash. They get to keep 25 percent of what they make, which amounted to about $25 for last week’s can collector, to buy scout supplies.

They can turn the cans in at either Mankato Iron & Metal or Gopher State Scrap Metal, Rader said.

Owners of Mankato Iron & Metal built a can recycling center in 1991 that allows workers to immediately weigh cans brought in by customers, send the cans by conveyor to a shredding machine and blow the shredded aluminum into the back of a waiting semi trailer. The business processes about 80,000 pounds of aluminum each week, said co-owner Ron Pooley.

That amount is actually down from what it was several years ago, Pooley said. More people are buying pop in plastic bottles now, which he suspects are more likely to end up in a landfill because there isn’t the same financial incentive to recycle.

“You’ve got to make it a benefit to people, make them want to recycle,” he said.

Pooley doesn’t expect aluminum can prices to hit the 78 cents per pound mark they were at this spring, but he said he does expect the 65 cents per pound range to hold through the summer. It’s been awhile since the price has gotten under 50 cents.

“This time of year they move naturally because people are getting them out of their garage,” he said.

That’s what Janet Husak was doing Friday afternoon. She said she doesn’t just put the cans in her Mankato recycling bin because there isn’t room. The bin is filled with steel, plastic and paper instead.

However, sometimes she does dump her cans in the various collection bins around town, she said.

“We recycle everything, so this is just part of our usual routine,” Husak said.

That’s also part of the learning experience for the scouts, Rader said. Collecting aluminum is not just about economics, he said. It’s also about learning to be good citizens and doing what’s best for the environment.

Many people don’t know that the troop is also out on the parade route early Sunday morning picking up candy wrappers and other garbage that’s been left behind, Rader added.

“We do see some money in it, but it’s more of a service to the city,” he said. “It is profitable with these pop cans, but we do want the boys to be aware of recycling and that everything doesn’t need to be thrown away.”