Brass scrap is a copper-zinc alloy recovered from fittings, rod, tube, rolled products, castings and radiators. Yards and traders usually offer it as yellow brass, red brass or a mixed copper-alloy parcel. Copper content, zinc, lead, iron and attachments determine the grade. Colour alone is not a specification.
Brass is a non-ferrous copper alloy. It does not belong in a copper scrap bag as if it were unalloyed copper, and it does not belong in HMS. The names used on offers sit in ISRI nomenclature. Honey is the usual word for mixed yellow brass solids. Drink is a lower refinery mix priced on copper units. If a listing says only “brass scrap”, the buyer still has to ask which preparation.
What brass scrap is
Brass is copper alloyed mainly with zinc. Red brass holds more copper and less zinc. Yellow brass holds more zinc and is the common hardware alloy. Bronze is copper with tin and is a separate lot, even when it sits next to brass in the same skip.
Typical arisings are valves, fittings, rod ends, tube, taps, keys, ship and engineering castings, and heat-exchanger parts. Plated brass is still brass if the base metal is brass; iron bodies with a brass skin are not. Munitions, manganese bronze, aluminium bronze and heavily corroded material are outside a standard yellow-brass solids grade.
Brass recycling returns copper and zinc to the melt. The energy saving against primary copper is real, but the furnace still needs a known copper percentage and a limit on iron, aluminium and contamination. Mixed “yellow metal” without a split between brass, bronze and copper is priced as the weakest interpretation.
Yellow brass and Honey
Honey is mixed yellow brass solids: castings, rod, tube and rolled brass, including plated pieces when the base is brass. Manganese bronze, aluminium bronze, unsweated radiators, iron, munitions and heavily corroded material are not good delivery under that name. In European emails Honey is the default brass word when the seller means clean yellow solids.
Rod and bar ends from a machine shop are often a cleaner lot than demolition fittings, which may still carry iron stems, steel screws or plastic. Sweated radiators (brass tube with the joints still on) are not Honey until they are prepared as the buyer requires. If iron is left on, the lot is irony brass and should be described as such.
Brass scrap prices follow the copper market at a discount for zinc and for anything that is not brass. A parcel offered as Honey and delivered as mixed fittings with iron will be regraded. The ISRI codes give both sides a baseline; the contract can still tighten packing and analysis.
Red brass, bronze and radiators
Red brass (sometimes called 85/15 or similar shop names) is higher in copper than yellow brass and is used in valves and some castings. It should be kept separate when the quantity justifies it. Mixing red into yellow hides the copper units the buyer would have paid for; mixing yellow into a red lot dilutes them.
Bronze is not brass. High-tin bronze solids (the trade sometimes uses Eland for a high-grade low-lead bronze) are a foundry product. Aluminium bronze and manganese bronze are other alloys. They look similar on a dirty floor and they do not melt as yellow brass.
Brass radiators and heater cores are their own preparation: clean, dirty, or mixed with iron tanks. Aluminium-copper radiators (Talk) are a bimetal and are not a brass lot. If radiators are unsweated, say so. If they are mixed with Honey solids, the whole parcel is usually priced as the radiator grade or as mixed copper alloy, not as clean yellow brass.
Refinery brass and turnings
Drink is a refinery grade: mixed brass and bronze solids and turnings plus contaminated copper, with a copper floor around 61 percent and a cap on iron. Insulated wire and grindings do not belong. It is bought as copper units, not as Honey. A seller with mixed dirty copper alloys and no wish to sort them is closer to Drink than to a mill brass melt.
Turnings and borings are not solids. Oil, moisture and iron fines are part of the weight discussion. A mill that bought Honey solids and receives oily swarf has bought a different product. State that the material is turnings, and whether they are yellow brass or mixed.
Grindings, dross and spilled metal are other products again. They need analysis. They should not be added to a solids bag to make up the tonnes.
How brass is recycled
Clean yellow and red solids go to brass mills and foundries that can hold a zinc-bearing melt. Mixed and contaminated lots go to a copper refinery, where zinc is largely lost to slag and fume and the payment is for recoverable copper. That is why sorting pays: the same physical pile can be a mill melt or a refinery unit depending on iron, aluminium, tin and dirt.
The recycling cycle for brass is collection, magnetic removal of iron, hand or sensor sort from copper and aluminium, then melting. A yard, trader or processor who will stand behind the copper content and the iron is the counterpart the melt wants. Photographs of a mixed skip are not a substitute for a named grade.
How to describe a brass lot
State the preparation: Honey / yellow brass solids, red brass, bronze, radiators (sweated or not), turnings, or refinery mix. Add quantity in tonnes, packing, city or port, and the company. Note iron, aluminium, radiators and whether the lot is plated.
Keep brass out of unalloyed copper and out of ferrous. How to sell scrap metal starts with the magnet, then with the alloy family. Verified companies can list the parcel on live lots or answer a wanted notice; access is via request access.
Brass scrap is a copper-zinc alloy sold on copper content and cleanliness. Yellow solids (Honey), red brass, bronze, radiators and refinery mixes are different products. Name the one you have.