Aluminium is the most common metal on the earth's surface and comes third in the table of most common elements.
This does not mean it is cheap because the cost of extracting the pure metal from the ore, which is usually bauxite, is a relatively expensive process.
On the other hand it is one of the easiest metals to recycle and having a fair value it becomes a worthwhile exercise not just environmentally but also in terms of cash it is possible for the recycler to gain.
By the middle of the nineteenth century when the metal was first being produced, the cost and difficulty in getting the finished product from various ores was such that it had a value greater than gold.
At one time the Emperor of France put away his solid gold dinner plates to impress his guests by serving up their dinner on his new aluminium plates.
Nowadays aluminium is used to make thousands of everyday objects from drink cans to aircraft and aluminium gutters.
The Emperor would certainly be jealous and completely out classed if he had visited another nobleman's house and seen all the guttering around the chateaux was in fact aluminium guttering.
If he returned to earth today he would be astonished at the everyday use of this once rare and valued metal.
Swapping gold for aluminium dinner plates is just one example of the volatile nature of metal values.
Metals are one of the most difficult commodities to deal with as a broker.
A single invention like the catalytic converter can overnight change dramatically the value of a metal.
In that example it was Palladium which rose in value a hundred fold as with its sister metal, Rhodium; the two became the catalysts on the aluminium oxide substrate which changed noxious exhaust gasses to safe ones.
In a twist to that tale, as diesel engines became more popular than petrol driven, the Palladium price dropped and Platinum shot up dramatically as it is the better metal for diesel catalysts.
Another example of the strange world of metal prices is the discovery that what were thought to be solid gold coins from the ancient Inca dynasty were not always so.
Some of these solid gold coins in museums all over the world have been examined and found to be fakes.
The Inca forger ingeniously filled the centre of the coin with a metal which had no value at that time.
That metal is pure platinum which ironically has far out valued pure gold for decades now.
One of the properties of aluminium is its lightness compared with some other metals.
This is a strong metal which is easy to machine tool.
Having the advantages of being light and nonferrous it will not rust but it will last almost indefinitely as aluminium guttering.