Cast Iron Scrap Price: Per Pound Rates & Common Item Values

Cast iron scrap is worth $0.04 to $0.12 per pound today, or roughly $80 to $240 per ton. It’s one of the lowest per-pound rates in the scrap market, but cast iron items are heavy, so weight adds up fast: an old radiator brings $8-$25, a bathtub $12-$30, and an engine block $15-$40. Clean, sorted cast iron earns the top of the range, while contaminated or mixed loads price as shred steel.

Rates for every other metal grade are collected in the complete scrap metal price index.

Why Cast Iron Is a Volume Game

Nobody gets rich on cast iron’s per-pound rate. What makes it worth scrapping is density. Cast iron items are among the heaviest things in any cleanout: radiators, bathtubs, engine blocks, machinery bases, pipes, stoves, and weight plates.

Foundries and steel mills buy cast iron as a reliable melt feedstock. Its consistent carbon content makes it valuable for producing new castings, which keeps a steady price floor under the category even when steel markets soften.

The rate follows the broader ferrous market, benchmarked against shred steel prices currently sitting around $150-$200 per ton. Clean cast iron typically earns a premium above shred because it’s a known, uniform material.

Common Cast Iron Items and What They Pay

• Old radiators (150-300 lbs): $8 – $25 each
• Clawfoot bathtubs (250-350 lbs): $12 – $30 (check antique resale first!)
• Engine blocks (150-300 lbs): $15 – $40
• Wood stoves (200-400 lbs): $10 – $35
• Brake rotors and drums: $0.05 – $0.10/lb, a steady automotive stream
• Weight plates and machinery: priced by the pound like everything else

The bathtub note deserves emphasis. Refinished clawfoot tubs sell for $300-$1,500 to renovators. Before you break one apart with a sledgehammer for $20 of iron, spend five minutes on a marketplace search.

How to Identify Cast Iron

Cast iron is brittle, thick, and granular where broken. The magnet test confirms it’s ferrous, but distinguishing it from steel matters for pricing. Cast items have visible mold seams, a rough pebbly surface, and they crack rather than bend under a hammer blow. Steel dents and bends; cast iron shatters.

Engine blocks add a wrinkle: many modern blocks are aluminum, worth 5-8x more per pound. Check with a magnet before assuming any block is iron. The aluminum ones belong in a completely different pile, priced against the rates in our aluminum scrap guide.

Common Mistakes That Shrink Your Payout

• Scrapping antiques: Clawfoot tubs, ornate radiators, and vintage stoves often carry resale value 10-50x their scrap weight.
• Leaving attachments on: Brass radiator valves and copper fittings are worth 20-40x the iron rate. Strip them into their own bucket.
• Mixing cast with light iron: A sorted clean cast pile earns the premium rate. Mixed loads take the shred price.
• Hauling without volume: At $0.08/lb, a half-empty truck barely pays for gas. Accumulate a real load.
• Ignoring oil and fluids: Engine blocks must be drained. Yards dock or reject dripping blocks.

Getting the Best Price

Sort clean cast iron from general steel, strip every non-ferrous attachment, drain any fluids, and call yards to ask specifically whether they pay a separate cast iron rate above shred. Many do, some don’t, and the difference is worth the phone call on a heavy load.

Cast iron rewards the patient scrapper with a truck and a strong back. Pair a cast load with higher-value material like electric motors or a scrap refrigerator and every trip to the yard earns its diesel.

Related scrap price guides

• Aluminum Scrap Price: What It’s Really Worth Per Pound Right Today
• Stainless Steel Scrap Price: 304, 316 & 430 Grade Values
• Bare Bright Copper Price: The Highest-Paying Scrap Grade
• Water Heater Scrap Value: Tank vs Tankless Prices Explained
• Scrap metal price index — all 25 materials and part types