The large buyers of European scrap metal on the seaborne market are not, in the main, European mills taking cargoes from neighbouring yards. In 2025 the EU-27 remained the world’s largest exporter of recycled steel, at about 16.7 million tonnes according to the Bureau of International Recycling (BIR). Most of that metal left for electric-arc steelworks in Turkey. India, Pakistan and other South Asian mills and foundries take a smaller share of EU-origin scrap, together with destinations such as Egypt. China consumes more scrap than any other country, almost all of it domestic; it is not a major buyer of European cargoes.

The pattern is ferrous first. HMS 1&2 80/20 is still the grade quoted into Iskenderun and Aliaga. Non-ferrous parcels (copper, aluminium, brass, stainless) also move to Asian processors and remelters, but the tonnage that defines “who buys Europe” is steel scrap.

Europe generates more scrap than it melts

Europe is a mature industrial region with a large stock of buildings, vehicles and machinery. That stock yields obsolete scrap every year. EU crude steel output has been weak relative to that arising. BIR figures for 2025 show the Union as a net exporter by a wide margin: roughly 16.7 million tonnes out, about 5 million tonnes in. Other 2025 tallies put third-country exports in a similar range, with Turkey taking around two-thirds.

Eurofer has argued that the EU ships on average about 17.5 million tonnes a year to third countries, a large share of seaborne ferrous trade, and that untreated scrap also carries copper, aluminium and nickel the European industry would rather keep. Until European electric-arc utilisation absorbs more of the surplus, export remains the outlet that clears the yard.

Scrap metal prices on a European lot are therefore often a delivered number into a foreign melt, minus freight, not only a local mill bid. When domestic longs and flats are slow, the Turkish or South Asian bid sets the floor.

Turkey is the main buyer

Turkey imported about 18.8 million tonnes of ferrous scrap in 2025, still the largest import market in the world, even after a decline of around 7 percent on the year. BIR records the EU as sending about 10.8 million tonnes of that metal to Turkey, with Egypt next among EU destinations at about 1.9 million tonnes. The Netherlands was again the largest single EU exporter (about 3.9 million tonnes). The United States and the United Kingdom were the other deep-sea origins; US shipments to Turkey fell sharply, which left European suppliers with a larger share of the Turkish book.

The reason is the furnace mix. The Turkish Steel Producers’ Association reported 38.1 million tonnes of crude steel in 2025, of which 72 percent was made in electric-arc furnaces. BIR puts recycled steel’s share of Turkish steelmaking near 87 percent. Those works buy prepared ferrous scrap as the main metallic, in cargo sizes, to a published mix. They are steel mills, not jobbing foundries.

Demand is not one-way. Through 2025 and into 2026, Turkish mills have paused when rebar prices, inventories or margins were poor. BIR noted weaker Turkish buying in parts of 2026 and a knock-on for European exporters. The structure does not change with a quiet month: when those EAFs run, they need imported HMS and shredded in millions of tonnes.

The EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, in force for steel in 2026, is an additional factor for mills that sell longs and flats into Europe. Scrap-based EAF steel has lower process emissions than blast-furnace metal, provided electricity and verification support the claim. That does not by itself set the scrap price. It does help explain why a large, scrap-fed industry next to the Mediterranean remains the natural counterparty for EU export yards.

South Asian mills and foundries

India was the world’s second-largest scrap importer in 2025, at about 8 million tonnes (BIR). Only around 1 million tonnes of that came from the EU; the rest was US, UK and other origins. Indian secondary steel is built on induction furnaces as well as EAFs. Those plants can substitute sponge iron (DRI) and domestic scrap when imports are expensive, which is why Indian seaborne buying fell in 2025 even as crude steel and scrap use at home rose.

Pakistan’s imports increased strongly in 2025, to about 3 million tonnes. Bangladesh remains dependent on imported ferrous scrap for its mill sector, though its buying in 2025–26 has been cautious on weak construction demand. Taiwan and South Korea are large Asian importers too, but their 2025 volumes fell, and they are not the main home for EU surplus in the way Turkey is.

From May 2027 the EU’s revised Waste Shipment Regulation is due to restrict exports of non-hazardous waste, including many scrap grades, to non-OECD countries unless the destination is approved. India has asked for continued access. Turkey is an OECD member, so the same bar does not apply in the same way. For a European seller, that distinction will matter more than the label “Asia”.

Why those buyers take European cargoes

European scrap is specified, available in vessel lots, and located on a short sea route to the eastern Mediterranean compared with the US East Coast. Yards, traders and processors in the North Sea and Mediterranean already pack HMS, shredded and containerised non-ferrous for that route. Turkish mills run on imported scrap because domestic collection does not cover EAF feed. South Asian secondary mills run on imported scrap when local DRI and home scrap are insufficient or off-spec.

Energy, labour and environmental cost in the destination country affect the bid they can show. So does the finished-steel market they sell into. None of that removes the need for a named grade, a port and a quantity. A mill in Turkey or Gujarat is buying a furnace recipe, the same as a mill in Brescia.

What to put on a European export lot

If the likely buyer is a seaborne mill, write the grade that mill already uses: HMS 1&2 80/20, shredded, or the non-ferrous code. Add tonnes, packing or bulk, load port, and the company. How to sell scrap metal is unchanged: ferrous and non-ferrous separated, mix declared.

Policy and mill margins will move the bid between Turkey, Egypt, India and the domestic EU melt. The recycling cycle still ends at a furnace. For now, a large share of European arising is melted east and south of the Union. Verified companies can list that parcel on live lots or answer wanted; request access if you have metal or a programme to cover.

European scrap is bought in bulk by scrap-fed steel industries that do not generate enough of their own. In 2025 that meant Turkish EAFs first, then Egypt and South Asian mills. Asian foundries and remelters take part of the non-ferrous and some ferrous, but they are not the whole map.