You might have some luck if you talked to your local power company. Don't bother the folks downtown, go out to the yard where they load and unload the trucks. You might need to deal with some nasty oil tho. The EPA may not just let you take an old one and throw the stuff you don't want in the trash.
The POCO is certainly the place to ask these questions, since they have bad ones all the time. I bet they rip them apart, salvage the copper, properly dispose of the oil and the rest is trash but the can will probably be destroyed in the process.
