Ketterling no longer pays for aluminum

Bill Ketterling of Ketterling Services announced this week that it will no longer pay for aluminum cans and aluminum scraps, effective immediately.
Ketterling Services, the local solid waste and recycling operator, has for years offered 25 cents per pound of aluminum (which amounts to about 40 cans).
But the announcement came this week as a result of the changes in the aluminum market, Ketterling said.
“We weren’t very competitive in the first place,” he said, adding that aluminum purchase was offered as a local convenience.
People could drive their aluminum to Sioux Falls or other markets and receive 35 cents or more per pound, and that option still exists.
But at Ketterling Services in Luverne, the company that used to pick up purchased aluminum is no longer doing business here.
R & T Unit Can Center, Sioux Falls, used to provide a semitrailer that Ketterling would fill up, and the company would pick up the trailer in Luverne, process the aluminum and return an empty trailer.
That service no longer exists, and Ketterling said it’s cost-prohibitive for his business to continue buying aluminum without it.
People who want to continue being paid for aluminum can bring it to companies in Sioux Falls and other areas that still buy it.
Otherwise, aluminum is accepted in the local single-stream recycling program, as has always been the case.