Recycling Appliances: What Each One Is Worth and the Refrigerant Rule

Appliances are scrap yard material, not kerbside material. A washing machine is worth about $48 at today's prices, a fridge about $43 and an air conditioning condenser about $72, against a filing cabinet at $9 and a steel bath at $11. Cooling appliances are the exception to everything: refrigerant must be recovered by a certified technician before disposal, and yards refuse untagged units.

That refrigerant rule is federal law rather than a yard preference, and it is the single most common reason an appliance trip is wasted.

What each appliance is worth today

These are our reference grades multiplied by typical weights, and they move with the market. Weigh your own; a commercial unit or an older machine with a cast iron counterweight can be considerably heavier.

Notice the pattern. The appliances worth the most are the ones with copper in them, which is why the condenser beats machines twice its weight.

The refrigerant rule

Fridges, freezers, air conditioners, dehumidifiers and heat pumps contain refrigerant that must be recovered by a certified technician before the appliance is scrapped, under Clean Air Act requirements. Venting it is an offence.

In practice this means one of three things: the retailer recovers it when delivering a replacement, a licensed appliance recycler handles it, or you pay a technician. Yards ask for evidence and refuse units without it, so arrange this before loading anything.

What to remove before the scale

Most of an appliance is light steel at about $0.13 a pound, so the parts worth separating are the ones that are not.

• Compressor. Sealed steel shell with copper windings inside, bought as its own grade. Ten minutes on a fridge.
• Electric motor. Washing machine and dryer motors are a separate line, worth far more than the shell they came from.
• Copper coil or radiator. On air conditioning units this is the single most valuable part.
• Wiring harness. Insulated copper wire at about $2.80 a pound.
• Stainless drum. Dishwasher and some washing machine drums, sold as stainless rather than mixed.
• Counterweights. Concrete blocks in washing machines are dead weight the yard does not pay for, and some yards deduct for them.

Our guide to preparing scrap metal for sale covers the cutting and sorting, and where the copper hides gives published copper content per appliance.

Sell, give away, or pay

One appliance rarely justifies a trip. At roughly $30 for fuel and an hour of your time, a single dryer at $27 loses money and a single washing machine at $48 barely clears.

Three routes work better. Collect several items and go once. Hand them to a collector running a round, who takes them free and keeps the metal. Or take the retailer haul-away when a replacement is delivered, which usually includes refrigerant recovery and costs nothing.

Paying for removal makes sense only when the load has no non-ferrous in it and you have no vehicle.

Common mistakes

• Arriving with a cooling appliance and no refrigerant recovery tag.
• Driving one machine to a yard.
• Leaving the compressor, motor and harness in, which is most of the value.
• Putting an appliance beside a kerbside bin, where it is left behind.
• Assuming a heavier machine is worth more; the copper decides, not the steel.
• Cutting refrigerant lines, which is both an offence and pointless.

For other items, the scrap value index prices the rest of the house, and the recycling hub sets out which stream each category belongs to.

What this metal pays around the world

Scrap is a global market priced in US dollars, but what reaches a seller depends on trade position, freight to the nearest consumer and how many buyers compete locally. The table below converts the same grade into each market’s own currency and units at the day’s exchange rate, and shows the factor we apply.

Frequently asked questions