I have several old cylinders that used to contain gas chlorine, which I used to service swimming pools. The cylinders themselves are steel, with brass valves threaded in, and the brass valves have monel steel stems. Given current scrap metal prices, is it worth my time to break the cylinders down, and recycle the metals separately, or should I just leave the them put together? I will be drilling holes in the cylinders before I take them to the recycler.

My experience has been to separate metals. Each one is a different price. Brass is 3-4x's the price of "scrap". I separated an old grill and made a few extra bucks off it by doing so. Took only a few minutes. I would think pulling a few valves off tanks wouldn't be much work for the extra money.

Steel is worth cents on the pound, last time I scrapped any brass I believe it was under $2 per pound. I'd make the tanks safe and scrap as steel and be done with it. If valves just screw out easily then I'd separate.

There are valve protectors which I'd have to take off to get the valves out. Those have been on there for years, I'd probably need to hit them with some wd-40 to help break them loose. I'd need a pipe stand and a fairly large pipe wrench to get the valves out. I don't think it would be difficult, just time consuming, and I don't know that it's worth it overall.

Call the scrap dealer, tell them you have chlorine cylinders. They will tell you if they will take them, and what you need to do to them to make them "safe"

A couple of things. Brass here is right about $1.25 per pound. I don't know about the rest, I scrap a lot of brass because I can't use or sell it all.

But, I will tell you this. When I decided to stop throwing away five gallon buckets of brass, and start to recycle it, I had to search around to find a place that would take it. One place most memorably told me that they could not take it. Because if the yard caught fire, the empty brass would catch fire, explode, and kill them all. Yeah. No kidding. And yes, she did know I was talking about empty brass. I found another place that is happy to take it.

So, you may have to search around a bit if your first place is a no-go.

Run the numbers for what your time is worth vs. the time it would take to bust up and separate the parts. To me, they don't add up.