Without a doubt, the majority of phone calls, inquiries and online contact forms we receive revolve around daily scrap metal prices! Truth is, we completely understand – you want to know how much green you’re going to get for your scrap metal!

The challenge on our end is that scrap prices fluctuate by the minute, based on a number of factors. Most of these factors are far beyond the scope of our influence. We at Bee Green Recycling are good at what we do… but we’re not good enough to change world wide prices for metal!

That being said, several factors directly impact metal prices:

Pricing Factors

Scrap metal prices are influenced substantially by demand, the market itself, fuel prices and local fluctuations in supply. Here is a bit more information:

Demand

When the demand for metal changes on a global, national or local level, so do our prices. During a housing boom, the price of copper will generally go up as contractors utilize copper for various projects. Alternatively, when the housing market slows down, builders construct less home. Therefore, as a whole, the industry require less copper. In turn, overall demand is down and our prices reflect that loss in demand.

Regulation

When the economy and the market on a macro level change, so do our prices! If a government passes a law that even slightly restricts or taxes exports to countries looking to buy up American scrap metal, international demand will go down..and thereby we pay our day to day customer less. If we open up trade discussions with a country and they are in need of American scrap, the reverse takes place and we can pay our customers more!

Point being: In today’s economy, a number of factors well beyond our local environment play a huge role in driving prices up or down for scrap metal. Factors like currency fluctuations. Resource abundance (or lack thereof).Infrastructure considerations in developed vs developing countries. Economic positions of nations which import or export materials to the US, etc. All of this stuff matters!

It can be quite mind boggling for a day to day scrapper to try and pin down all the exact factors globally that impact our scrap metal prices here in Richmond. Trust us when we say that we do all we can to pay you as much as possible for every piece of scrap you bring us! We focus on knowing exactly how much we can pay for each type of scrap on a day to day basis.

Transportation

Fuel prices can greatly impact scrap metal payouts and pricing. As you might know from hauling your own scrap metal, this material is often quite heavy! Hauling metal from yard to yard or across state/national borders requires a ton of fuel! So does the actual fuel used in breaking down scrap metal for resale or shipping! When fuel prices go up, our costs go up as well… and we end up paying less for scrap metal in order to maintain even a slim margin. The opposite is also true. When fuel prices go down we can end up paying more for scrap as transportation costs are less (meaning we can pay you more in order to maintain the same margin, since our costs are less).

Local Factors

On the local side here in Richmond, a variety of variable impact scrap metal prices. If a scrap yard is low on copper and have buyers lined up to buy copper, you better believe they’re paying more for it! If they’re overstocked on aluminum, they may not be willing to pay as much.

As you can see, this business is highly complex, as a variety of factors (some in our control, most not) influence what we can pay our customers scrap metal. While we only touched on a few “high level” factors here, we are happy to discuss more specific local, national or global influences with you. Just give us a holler and we’d love to share some knowledge!

Metal Prices