When we remove old gutters from a home, one of the most common questions homeowners ask is what happens to the material. If your existing gutters are aluminum, the answer is simple. They get recycled. Aluminum is one of the most recyclable materials on the planet, and old gutter sections have real scrap value that keeps them out of landfills.
For homeowners in the Portland metro area who care about reducing waste, knowing that your old gutters will be recycled rather than dumped is a meaningful part of the replacement process. Here is how aluminum gutter recycling works, what the material is worth, and what we do with every piece of old gutter we remove.
Why Aluminum Is Infinitely Recyclable
Unlike many materials that degrade each time they are processed, aluminum can be melted down and reformed an unlimited number of times without losing any of its structural properties. The aluminum in your gutters today could have been a beverage can twenty years ago, an airplane component before that, and it will become something new again after we remove it from your home. This infinite recyclability makes aluminum one of the most environmentally efficient building materials available.
Recycling aluminum uses roughly 95 percent less energy than producing new aluminum from raw bauxite ore. That is a massive reduction in carbon emissions, water usage, and mining impact. When a set of old gutters from a Portland home gets recycled instead of sent to a landfill, it saves enough energy to power a television for several hundred hours. Multiply that across the thousands of gutter replacements happening across Oregon every year and the environmental impact is significant.
The recycling process itself is straightforward. The old gutter sections are collected, sorted, cleaned of any non aluminum attachments like steel screws or vinyl end caps, and then sent to a scrap processor. The processor shreds the aluminum, melts it in a furnace, and casts it into ingots that manufacturers purchase to make new products. The entire cycle from old gutter to new raw material takes only a few weeks.
What Are Old Aluminum Gutters Worth
Aluminum scrap prices fluctuate with commodity markets, but clean aluminum gutter material typically brings between 30 and 60 cents per pound at Portland area scrap yards. A typical home has between 100 and 200 linear feet of gutters, and aluminum gutters weigh roughly half a pound per foot. That puts the scrap value of a full set of residential gutters somewhere between 15 and 60 dollars depending on current market prices and the total footage.
That is not a fortune, but it is enough to make recycling worthwhile from a financial perspective on top of the environmental benefits. Professional gutter companies that handle volume see meaningful revenue from recycling old materials, which creates a built in incentive to recycle rather than dump. For us, recycling is both the right thing to do and a practical part of the business.
If you are doing a DIY gutter removal project and want to recycle the material yourself, several scrap yards in the Portland area accept aluminum gutters. Far West Recycling, Schnitzer Steel, and Pacific Metal Company all take residential quantities of aluminum scrap. You will want to remove any steel hangers, screws, or non aluminum components before bringing the material in, as mixed metals reduce the price per pound.
What We Do With Old Gutters
When Brothers Gutters removes old gutters from a home, we separate the aluminum from other materials on site. Steel hangers, vinyl components, and any other non recyclable pieces go into proper waste disposal. The aluminum gutter sections are loaded onto our truck and taken to a local recycling facility at the end of each work week.
We do not mix gutter material into general construction debris or send it to a landfill. Every piece of aluminum we remove goes to recycling. This has been our practice since day one, and it is something we feel strongly about as a company operating in a state that values environmental responsibility.
Oregon has some of the strongest recycling infrastructure in the country, and Portland area facilities make it easy for contractors to recycle construction materials. There is no excuse for any gutter company to send recyclable aluminum to a landfill when recycling options are this accessible. If you are getting quotes from gutter companies and environmental impact matters to you, ask each company what they do with old materials. The answer tells you a lot about how they run their business.
Beyond aluminum, copper gutters also have significant recycling value, often much higher than aluminum due to copper's market price. If your home has old copper gutters and you are considering replacement, talk to your installer about the scrap value before the work begins. In some cases, the scrap value of old copper gutters can offset a meaningful portion of the replacement cost.
Choosing a gutter company that recycles is a small decision that adds up over time. Every home in the Portland metro area that gets new gutters generates old material. Making sure that material stays in the recycling stream rather than a landfill is one of the easiest environmental wins available to homeowners.