Selling scrap metal is not taking a mixed pile to the nearest gate and hoping the scale is kind. In the trade, “how to sell scrap metal” means turning ferrous and non-ferrous metal into a named lot: a grade a mill, smelter or yard can book, a weight they can plan, and a place they can collect. That is the difference between recycling as a slogan and recycling as a business.
People search “sell scrap metal”, “sell copper scrap” and “aluminium recycling” because they have metal on the ground. The buyer is not paying for the story of the demolition. They are paying for a specification. Ferrous and non-ferrous metals take different magnets, different furnaces and different prices. Mix them and the lot is priced as the cheapest thing in the heap.
Sort ferrous from non-ferrous first
The first cut in scrap metal recycling is the magnet. Most steel and cast iron stick. Copper, aluminium, brass, lead and zinc do not. Stainless is the awkward cousin: it is ferrous by chemistry and often weakly magnetic, so it is sold as its own grade, not as HMS and not as mixed non-ferrous.
That split is the business. Ferrous recycling is tonnes: demolition steel, plate, shredded, factory offcuts. Non-ferrous recycling is value: a few tonnes of clean copper can out-earn a truck of mixed iron. A yard that leaves copper windings in a steel charge, or steel inserts in aluminium, has not recycled either stream. It has contaminated both.
Do the sort before you offer. Photos of a mixed skip tell a buyer to bid the floor. Photos of prepared HMS in one pile and stripped wire in another tell them there is a lot.
How to sell ferrous scrap
Ferrous scrap is steel and iron prepared for a furnace. If you are selling demolition or obsolete steel into export, the language is HMS: HMS 1, HMS 2, or HMS 1&2 80/20. If the metal has been through a fragmentiser, it is shredded, not HMS. If it is new factory clippings, it is busheling. Calling everything “iron scrap” or “steel recycling” is how the buyer writes the cheaper grade on the contract.
Sell ferrous by the tonne, with the cut and the dirt stated. Thickness and piece size decide HMS 1 versus HMS 2. Galvanising, copper, sealed units and muck decide whether a mill will charge it at all. Stainless does not belong in that pile. Cast engine blocks are not HMS. Turnings are a different product and a different moisture problem.
Domestic European mills also buy EU ferrous specs (E1, E3, E40 and the rest). Export emails still say HMS. Use the name the buyer already uses. Add city or port, packing or bulk, and a quantity that looks like a programme, not a van. Steel recycling at industrial scale is logistics: density in the box, a shear that can hit the spec, and a company that will stand behind the discharge.
How to sell copper scrap
Copper scrap is the non-ferrous search that never sleeps: copper recycling, copper wire scrap, scrap copper, bare bright. The metal is sold on recovery, not on the romance of the cable. Bare bright and No. 1 wire (Berry) sit closest to the copper price because there is almost nothing to subtract. No. 2 wire (Birch) is a step down. Insulated cable is priced after someone has guessed the copper left when the plastic is gone. Pipe, busbar, radiators and motors are other products.
If you want to sell copper scrap, do not write “copper”. Write the preparation. Stripped or not. Wire or pipe. Clean or soldered. A mixed “red metal” drum will be bought as the worst piece in it. A buyer who pays Berry money for Birch will claim; a seller who offers Birch as Berry will not get a second lift.
Copper recycling is a small-tonnage, high-value trade. Container lots and mill parcels talk tonnes, a basis to the copper market, and an assay. Street yards talk kilos on a poster. Both are real. They are not the same offer. Industrial sellers should quote the city, the packing and the ISRI name, then let a refinery or a chopper answer.
How to sell aluminium and the rest of the non-ferrous
Aluminium recycling is alloy recycling. Extrusions (Tata), cast (Tense), UBC cans (Taldon) and shredded non-ferrous (Twitch; Zorba when it is a mix) do not buy as one “aluminium scrap” number. A remelter that wanted clean 6063 and receives painted sheet has bought a different heat. Irony, plastic, foil and steel attachments are where the deduction starts.
Brass (Honey and the refinery grades), bronze, zinc, lead and aluminium-copper radiators are their own lots. They are not a bonus in a copper offer and not a sweetener in a ferrous cargo. Non-ferrous scrap recycling makes money when each stream is kept as a stream. It loses money when the skip is “everything that did not stick to the magnet”.
If you do not know the alloy, do not name a premium grade. Offer what you have: photos, a weight, a city, and any analysis. The recycling cycle pays the sorter. The furnace only pays the recipe.
What a buyer needs before they bid
A bid is not a screenshot of yesterday’s list. To sell scrap metal as a company you need five things on the offer: the grade, the tonnes, the place, the packing, and who you are. “HMS 1&2 80/20, 400 t, ex works Duisburg” can be read in any language. “Metal for sale, best price” cannot.
Say whether the lot is live metal on the ground or a future arising. Say if you have a weighbridge ticket, an analysis, or only a photo. Say the Incoterm if you know it: ex works, FOB, CFR. Scrap metal prices move with freight and with the melt. A number without a place is not a number.
Permits and paperwork are part of the business in Europe, not an afterthought. Waste shipment rules, end-of-waste, and who is the holder of the scrap decide whether a lot can cross a border. Buyers on a B2B marketplace expect a company, not a private pile.
Offer the lot where the melt is looking
ScrapEurope is built for that offer. Verified companies post live lots and wanted and deal direct — zero commissions. Name the metal the furnace already uses: HMS, shredded, Berry, Taldon, Sabot. Then quantity, city or port, and the company.
How to sell scrap metal, in one line: sort ferrous from non-ferrous, give each stream its grade, and put a tradable lot in front of a mill, smelter or yard that can melt it. Lists expire. A named parcel can be sold. If you have metal or a programme to fill, request access and write the specification first.