Aluminium scrap is the other non-ferrous search that never sleeps: aluminium recycling, aluminum scrap, scrap aluminium, UBC, extrusions. It is not “light metal in a skip”. It is an alloy prepared so a remelter can charge a known recipe. Copper is a recovery business. Aluminium is an alloy business. Mix 6063 window bar with engine castings and you have not made a bigger lot. You have made a worse one.
Aluminium is a non-ferrous metal. A magnet will not pull it. Steel inserts, iron clips and copper tube will still be in the price if you leave them there. The names the trade uses sit in ISRI nomenclature: Tata, Tense, Taldon, Talk, Twitch. If a listing says only “aluminium scrap” or “aluminum scrap”, it is not a grade yet.
What aluminium scrap is
Aluminium scrap is aluminium that has already been made and can be specified again: new extrusion butts, old window and curtain wall, used beverage cans, castings, sheet, radiators, the aluminium fraction off a shredder. It is not zinc die-cast. It is not stainless that someone hoped was aluminium. Those are other lots.
Aluminium recycling is famous for energy. Remelting used metal needs a small fraction of the power that primary metal takes from bauxite. That is why smelters and remelters buy it, and why packaging and automotive programmes talk about recycled content. They still buy chemistry. Silicon, magnesium, copper, paint, foil and plastic decide whether a heat can be can-stock, extrusion billet or a low-grade casting alloy.
In Europe you will hear extrusion, UBC, cast, painted sheet, wheels, Twitch and Zorba. They are not cousins on a poster. New 6063 press scrap is not demolition frame. A bale of cans is not a bale of foil. Write the preparation you actually have.
Extrusions and 6063
Extrusion scrap is the industrial grade buyers want when they say “clean aluminium”. Tata is new production extrusions, typically 6063: press butts and offcuts, free of foreign contamination. Anodising is usually accepted. Paint or a different alloy needs agreement. This is factory metal, not a demolished façade.
Old extrusions — window, door, curtain wall — can still be a strong lot if they are one series and stripped of steel screws, plastic thermal break and glass. They are not Tata. Calling demolition frame “6063 new” is how a remelter opens a claim. Painted architectural bar is a different charge again: more coating, more risk of mixed alloys.
If you sell scrap metal as extrusion, say new or old, painted or mill-finish, and whether iron is off. Photos of the cut end help more than a photo of a pile. A mill that budgeted for Tata and receives mixed 6000/old sheet has bought a different heat.
UBC and can scrap
UBC is used beverage cans. Taldon is the ISRI name: magnetically cleaned, baled to a stated density and size, free of steel, lead, plastic, glass and anything that is not a drinks can. It is one of the most standardised aluminium lots in the world because the product is the same can everywhere. Can-sheet mills buy it as a known melt.
That is why aluminium recycling posters show cans and why aluminium scrap prices for UBC look clean on a list. The list assumes Taldon. A bale with pet bottles, foil trays, steel cans and wet waste is not Taldon. Moisture and dirt are weight you will not be paid for. Magnetic cleaning is not optional decoration.
UBC is not “all packaging aluminium”. Foil, aerosol, food trays and composite lids are other products. Mix them into the can bale and the remelter is buying lacquer, organics and the wrong alloy. Offer cans as cans.
Castings, sheet and mixed aluminium
Tense is clean mixed aluminium castings: auto and other cast, without ingots, free of iron, brass and dirt. Cast is high silicon. It does not substitute for extrusion. A remelter that asked for Tata will reject Tense. Wheels can be a lot of their own if they are aluminium and free of steel weights and tyres. They are not sheet.
Painted siding, litho, old sheet and mixed “old aluminium” are the grades that look like volume and price like a guess. Irony aluminium — steel inserts, iron attachments — is priced as irony, not as clean. Oil and grease on castings are limited for a reason. Talk is aluminium-copper radiators: a bimetal, priced on both recoveries, not as extrusion and not as copper scrap.
If you do not know the alloy, do not name 6063 or “can stock”. Offer what you have: photos, a magnet pass, a weight, a city. Mixed aluminium is a valid lot when you call it mixed. It is a claim when you call it Tata.
Twitch, Zorba and shredder aluminium
Twitch is the aluminium fraction from a fragmentiser after media separation: dry, with tight limits on free zinc, magnesium, iron, rubber and plastic, and no airbag canisters or sealed units. It is shredded aluminium with a specification, not a lucky pile off the belt.
Zorba is the mixed non-ferrous concentrate from the same shredder: mainly aluminium, plus copper, zinc, stainless and the rest. A number after the name is estimated metal content, so Zorba 90 is about 90 percent metal, not 90 percent aluminium. Zurik is the stainless-rich sibling. Do not offer Zorba as Twitch. Do not offer Twitch as Tata.
Shredder aluminium is how end-of-life vehicles become a furnace charge. The recycling cycle pays the plant that separates it. The remelter pays the analysis. A pretty photo of “silver shred” is not a spec.
Why remelters buy aluminium scrap
Remelters and can-sheet mills buy aluminium scrap because it is aluminium units they can plan. Clean extrusion goes toward billet. Taldon goes toward can body. Cast and mixed old go toward foundry alloys. Energy is the public reason: secondary aluminium is cheap in kilowatt-hours against primary. Programmes and recycled-content targets are the industrial reason. None of that replaces a sort.
Europe uses more aluminium than it produces as primary metal in many years. Scrap is the domestic mine if the grade is honest. A yard, trader or processor who will stand behind alloy and iron is the counterpart the melt wants. A lie about clean 6063 helps once.
How to offer aluminium on a lot
Name the grade the melt already uses. Tata or new extrusions. Old extrusions, painted or not. Taldon / UBC. Tense / cast. Twitch. Talk. Then tonnes, packing or bales, city or port, and the company. “Taldon, UBC, 80 t, bales, Rotterdam” can be read in any language. “Aluminum scrap for sale” cannot.
Keep aluminium out of the ferrous stream and out of the copper bag. Keep cans away from foil, new butts away from demolition frame, Twitch away from Zorba. Put the lot on live lots or answer a wanted notice. ScrapEurope is a B2B marketplace: verified companies, direct deals, zero commissions.
Aluminium scrap is alloy prepared for a remelt. Extrusions are the industrial grade. UBC is the can grade. Cast and shredder fractions are other recipes. Remelters buy them because they can schedule a heat. The rest is specification, and specification is what makes the lot tradable. If you have metal on the ground, request access and write the grade first.