Copper scrap is the non-ferrous grade people search every day: copper recycling, copper wire scrap, scrap copper, bare bright. It is not “red metal in a drum”. It is unalloyed copper prepared so a refinery or a wire chopper can put a recovery on it. Steel is a volume business. Copper is a recovery business. A few points of dirt, tin or insulation change the invoice more than a quiet day on the exchange.
Copper is a non-ferrous metal. A magnet will not pull it. A mill that melts HMS will not take it as a bonus in the box. The names the trade uses sit in ISRI nomenclature: Barley, Berry, Birch, Candy, Cliff, Clove, Druid. If a listing says only “copper scrap”, it is not a grade yet.
What copper scrap is
Copper scrap is copper that has already been made and can be specified again: wire, cable, pipe, busbar, punchings, motors once they are stripped, radiators once they are named as radiators. It is not brass, not bronze, not copper-plated steel. Those are other lots. Calling them copper is how a claim starts.
The metal comes from demolition, cable yards, utilities, factories and end-of-life equipment. Copper recycling is the work of keeping that metal as copper: stripping, sorting, chopping, sampling. Remelting scrap uses a fraction of the energy of mining and refining ore. That is why smelters buy it. They still buy a recipe, not a colour.
In Europe you will hear millberry, bright wire, No. 1, No. 2, insulated, and the ISRI words. They are not synonyms. Bright uncoated wire is not tinned wire. Solids are not wire. Nodules are not a bale of cable. Write the preparation you actually have.
Copper wire scrap and bare bright
Copper wire scrap is the search that dominates the non-ferrous market. Most of the copper that moves in containers is wire or cable, not plumbing. Bare bright is the top of that ladder: uncoated, unalloyed copper wire, no tin, no lacquer, no burn. The ISRI name is Barley. Yards call it bare bright because that is what it looks like.
Berry is the workhorse No. 1 copper wire in international emails: clean, untinned, uncoated wire and cable, free of burnt brittle wire and free of tubing. Barley is stricter. Berry is the standard parcel. If you strip heavy cable well, you are trying to land in one of those two. If you leave tin, solder or paint, you are not.
Gauge matters. Fine hair wire, burnt wire and mixed diameters are why a “bare copper” photo still comes back as No. 2. A chopper buying Clove (No. 1 wire nodules) wants granule they can sample. A trader buying Berry wants bales or bundles they can inspect. Same metal family. Different lots.
No. 1 and No. 2 copper
No. 1 is clean unalloyed copper. No. 2 is still copper, with enough tin, solder, paint or history that the assay is no longer No. 1. Birch is No. 2 copper wire: a nominal 96 percent copper, a floor around 94 percent on electrolytic assay. Cliff is the solids twin: miscellaneous unalloyed copper tube and solids at the same idea, without the wire. Candy is No. 1 heavy copper that is not wire: busbar, clippings, clean tube.
That spread is the business. Copper scrap prices follow the copper market and then subtract everything that is not copper. A buyer who pays Berry money for Birch will claim. A seller who offers Birch as Berry will not get a second lift. The ISRI codes exist so both sides already know where the line is.
Do not mix wire and solids in one bag and call it No. 1. Berry/Candy is a known combination when both sides agree. “Mixed copper” is a discount.
Insulated cable and recovery
Insulated copper wire is not priced as the weight over the weighbridge. It is priced as estimated copper after the plastic comes off. Druid is insulated No. 1 wire. Lower insulated grades are sold on sample: recovery, not a code word you can see through the jacket.
Thick, clean, single-core cable recovers well. Fine telecom, Christmas lights, armour and aluminium-conductor cable do not. A drum of “copper cable scrap” will be bought as the worst recovery in it unless you separate the streams. Chopping plants exist because stripping by hand does not always pay. The plant still needs a known mix. Surprise aluminium or steel in the chop is not a surprise. It is a deduction.
If you have not chopped it, say so. Offer the cable as it sits: photos of the cut ends, an estimated recovery if you have one, packing and city. Let the chopper or the refinery do the arithmetic. Guessing 70 percent on a mixed house-wire bale is how sellers argue with the assay.
Pipe, radiators and other copper
Not every copper lot is wire. Clean pipe and busbar are Candy when they are uncoated and unalloyed. Painted, soldered or iron-fitted tube falls toward Cliff. Motors are copper plus iron plus aluminium until someone strips them. Aluminium-copper radiators are Talk: a bimetal, priced on both recoveries, not as Berry.
Brass valves left on copper pipe are brass, not a rounding error. Copper-plated steel is steel. Transformers and motors are assemblies. Copper recycling at industrial scale is the discipline of not putting those assemblies in the No. 1 bag.
Why refiners buy copper scrap
Refineries and rod mills buy copper scrap because it is copper units they can plan. High-grade wire and nodules go toward cathode and rod. Lower grades and brass-bearing mixes go to a refinery charge with more slag and more sampling. The recycling cycle closes when that charge is specified. A mixed red pile cannot be scheduled. A named Berry or Birch parcel can.
They also buy it because Europe uses more copper than it mines. Cable, winding wire and plumbing are a domestic mine if the grade is honest. Energy is the other reason: secondary copper is cheaper in kilowatt-hours than primary metal. None of that replaces an assay. The melt pays for copper. It will not pay the same for insulation, iron and hope.
A yard, trader or chopper who will stand behind a recovery is the counterpart the refinery wants. Photos help. A sample helps more. A lie about bare bright helps once.
How to offer copper on a lot
Name the grade the melt already uses. Bare bright or Barley. Berry. Birch. Candy. Cliff. Insulated, with a recovery if you have it. Then tonnes, packing, city or port, and the company. “Berry, No. 1 copper wire, 18 t, big bags, Antwerp” can be read in any language. “Copper scrap for sale” cannot.
How to sell scrap metal starts with the magnet: copper stays in the non-ferrous stream. Then keep wire away from solids, bright away from tinned, cable away from motors. Put the lot on live lots or answer a wanted notice. ScrapEurope is a B2B marketplace: verified companies, direct deals, zero commissions.
Copper scrap is unalloyed copper prepared for a recovery. Copper wire scrap is the parcel that moves. Bare bright is the top of the wire ladder. No. 1 and No. 2 are the spread. Insulated is a guess until someone chops it. Refiners buy it because it is a copper unit they can melt. 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.