American Recycling

Best recycling place in El Cajon. Very nice staff and always helpful. The cashier is very nice and polite good customer service !!

The staff were so sweet and informative and kept the center very clean. They even helped me with my recyclables, so I tipped them. Will definitely come here always

BE AWARE… BUSINESS WILL NOT HONOR THEIR OWN COUPONS FOR PRICE MATCHING! ALSO HAS COUPONS FOR REDEMPTION PRICES WHEN THE REGULAR PRICE IS THE SAME AS COUPON PRICE. YOU THINK YOUR GETTING A SPECIAL DEAL WHEN YOUR NOT.
This is the first time I went there because of the price matching coupon. It’s closer then Dynamic Recycling on National ave. in San Diego who offered a coupon for $ 2.00 lb. for aluminum cans. American Recycling has a coupon that would price match or beat anyone else. They would not honor their own price matching coupon. I was told by the service counter guy «I’m not going to pay you that. Aluminum prices have gone down. If you don’t like it you can go there». This is of course after I unloaded everything… cans, plastic, and all different kinds of glass. Unfortunately after all the unloading and separating I didn’t have any plastic bags to «reload» all the items to put in the back of my truck so I really didn’t have to much of a choice but go with the $ 1.85lb. that was offered.
It’s unfortunate that the guy behind the service counter has such a condescending, patronizing and arrogant attitude, considering the other workers were so very nice, patient and helpful especially a guy named Chris… thanks again guy.
I will never go there again because of the service counter guy/​non honoring coupon and will recommend people to do business at other places.

This was my first time to this recycling center (RC). I patronized the Santee Landfill RC for 15 years… I wish I’d found this place sooner. It’s clean, the staff are professional and curious, and I was in and out in less than ten minutes with 30lbs of aluminum cans converted to cash. This is my new RC.

The crew greeted me with — Hello welcome 2 my humble establishment — I replied well, well — why thank you — extremely inviting /​welcoming i was so impressed — beyond expectations –considering how hot it was today — thank you n stay cool –

I went here not knowing what to expect since I’ve never been to a recycling place before. When I pulled up I was sketched out by a few homeless people recycling, but then when I looked around the normal people ratio was far more than the sketchy looking people. The staff was really friendly and helpful and the guy that helped me out was so funny! I ended up with $ 21 with 7 bags of mainly plastic bottles and aluminum cans. But I’m pretty pleased because that’s free gas money for me! Make sure you separate the different types of cans before you go because that part was a little annoying and bring wipes because your hands get sticky. Besides that, it went by really fast. Totally worth it, I’m glad I found this place. :)

Went here after reading the reviews. I agree that it is a pain to recycle in one of the supermarkets lot because there are always a lot of people there, and you have slide the cans and bottles in 1 at a time. I went to AR’s website and printed the savings coupons. There was plenty of parking and while there were many people there, things moved quickly and I was in and out. The coupons maybe gave me an extra 5 cents LOL not worth wasting the ink over! Knocking off 1 star because the trash cans you use for your bottles and stuff, but I couldn’t actually find a real trash can to dump my trash in. It also sucks when you store bottles and cans for months and get $ 2.72 back for having all that shit on your balcony and having the trip cost me probably $ 2.00 alone. I now see why people just throw their recyclables in the blue bin. I’m done with recycling for money. I would only do it if you truly can get a ton of cans and bottles like through work or something.