Is it normal for aluminium cans to be priced separately from other clean aluminium scrap?
Short answer: Yes. Used beverage cans (UBC) are a standardised, globally traded commodity with their own dedicated market and consistent alloy specification, which lets buyers bale and export them in bulk without additional sorting or testing. Mixed "clean aluminium" scrap has more variable alloy content, so it's priced and handled differently even though both are legitimately clean, sortable metal.
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List Free →Cans are a commodity in their own right
Used beverage cans are made from a small, well-known set of aluminium alloys, produced to consistent specifications by can manufacturers worldwide. That consistency is valuable to buyers: a bale of UBC from Australia and a bale from anywhere else is chemically similar enough that large recyclers and exporters can buy, bale, and ship it without needing to test or re-sort every load. That reliability is why UBC trades as its own line item with its own published pricing, rather than being folded into a generic “aluminium” category.
Why that’s different from “clean” mixed aluminium
A pile of clean aluminium offcuts from different sources — brackets, sheet, tube, extrusion trim — is genuinely free of contamination, but it can still be a mix of several different alloy series. That variability means a buyer either has to test it or price it more conservatively than a known, single-spec commodity like UBC.
What this means for you
If you’re accumulating both cans and general aluminium scrap, keeping them in separate containers from the start is usually worth it — mixing a bag of cans into a bin of mixed aluminium offcuts doesn’t contaminate anything chemically, but it can mean the whole lot gets priced at the lower “mixed” rate instead of cans getting their own, often more competitive, price.
How ScrapTrade Makes This Easier
ScrapTrade’s category system treats UBC as its own listing type for this exact reason — so can sellers get matched with buyers actively sourcing that specific commodity, not a generic mixed-aluminium buyer offering a blended rate.
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