Scrap Copper Trade
If you wish to Buy or Sell Scrap Copper, simply
ADD your inquiry
to the Inter-Continental Metal Exchange.
The exchange service has been successfully matching interested parties on-line since 1995.
If you wish to receive unique trade benefits for scrap copper, please check-out the enhanced
Trader Access service.
current values for Copper Scrap - Daily Spot Market Price Report
Copper Recycling
To recycle scrap copper start by separating out or excluding all other types of metals and non-metallic materials.
Copper (Cu) is a common non-ferrous metal that is not magnetic and can be identified by its distinctive orange colour.
Copper turns green on the surface as it oxides or weathers, scratching the surface will expose its true colour.
Separating scrap copper into the different
Grades & Specifications
will allow you to yield the best
value
for your scrap materials.
Copper Recovery Values
When copper is remelted the best yields are from bare bright scrap. Green surface materials
yield less due to the melt loss of the oxides. Thick or heavy gauge wires yield better than thin materials due to
exposed surface area contained in each ton of scrap.
Burnt or brittle scrap has an unusually high melt loss and therefore has a lesser value.
Copper Content
There are two basic classifactions of copper scrap. Directly meltable scrap and copper
content materials. The basis of the recovery values of copper scrap is determined by the percentage of copper contained in each item.
There are many common materials that are classified as Copper Content Scrap, such as
insulated
wire & cable,
items like
Electric Motor Scrap,
starters, alternators, armatures, commutators and copper windings.
Many electronic scrap materials are classified as copper content scrap such as
circuit board
scrap, power supplies, and electronic component scrap.
These items are difficult to manually clean and are typically accumulated and sold based on the copper recovery value.
At the bottom of the foodchain are
residues.
Copper Recycling Information
For anyone seeking current information or research data on the copper recycling industry,
you may access and ask your
Recycling Questions
to a core group of experienced and knowledgeable recycling industry professionals.
Scrap Copper (#1, #2, #3)
No.1 Heavy Scrap Copper
is clean unalloyed copper solids and must be uncoated.
It may include copper clippings, punchings, bus bars, commutator segments, clean copper pipe or tubing and
heavy Copper wire thicker than 1/16" but free of burnt or brittle wire.
No.2 Scrap Copper
may contain clean, oxidized or coated (plated) copper clippings, punchings, bus bars, commutator segments,
clean oxidized copper pipe or tubing.
No.3 Scrap Copper
includes Light Scrap Copper sheet, gutters, downspouts, kettles, boilers, foil, unburned hair wire and
Copper Turnings.
If you wish to learn a little more about Scrap Copper
Grade descriptions
you may review the Specification descriptions.
Clean Copper Wire
There are a number of grades of clean unalloyed copper wire scrap.
No.1 Bare Bright Copper Wire Scrap
commonly referred to as Millberry, a thick wire (16 gauge or thicker)
and
No.1 Copper Wire Scrap
(16 gauge or thicker) but not necessarily bright or shiney.
No.2 Copper Wire Scrap
is clean copper wire, (thinner than 16 gauge)
free of hair wire, brittle burnt wire and excessive oils, with a
minimum copper content of 94% remelt recovery rate.
Clean, unburnt
hair wire
may be sold as a #3 copper scrap.
Wire and Cable Reclamation
There are many different combinations of insulated wires and armour covered cables
that a recycler has to be prepared to deal with.
Two typical methods, wire
stripping
and cable
chopping
are used to separate the insulation materials to recover clean metal.
Wire and Cable Stripping
Only certain types of insulated Wire and Cables are suitable for Stripping.
Lead covered cables,
multi strand insulated cables and heavy gauge plastic insulated wires in straight lengths are ideal.
Short lengths, crooked bent wire, thin gage wire and steel or aluminum armour coated cables are not suitable.
Feeding the wire into a cable
stripper
enables you to peel the insulation from the wire.
You than can manually segregate the clean wire from the insulation material.
Wire and Cable Chopping
Wire and Cable Chopping takes different sizes and lengths of mixed combinations of wires and cables such as
plastic insulated aluminum or copper wire,
aluminum
or steel BX armoured cable and
using a wire
granulation
system reduce the hodge podge of incoming feed stock into a small uniform size.
Chop Separation
The mixed chopped material which contains mostly copper, aluminum, steel, plastics & misc. residue
can be efficiently, mechanically separated using magnetic separation and then agitating the remaining material
across a vibrating shaker table with an adjustable air flow so that the uniform sized material separates itself by specific gravity
into each unique type of material.
The process produces clean uniform copper
nodules,
clean uniform aluminum, clean uniform steel, uniform plastics and
bagged air filtered dust & residue like papers.
Electric Motor Scrap
If you wish to recycle Electric Motor Scrap that typically consists of steel shells with copper wire coil windings,
please post a listing to the Inter-Continental Metal Exchange for
Fractional Electric Motor Scrap
for motors less than 1 (one) horsepower in size.
If you have motors larger than 1 (one) horsepower in size make a listing for
Large Electric Motor Scrap.
List
Copper Compressor Motor Scrap
for sealed electric compressor motors derived from common Refrigerators & freezers.
Please feel free to ADD a Listing into the exchange to find potential trading partners for Shredded Electric Motors (Shelmo), also known as
Meatballs
or Shredder Pickings. Shelmo consists of mixed copper-bearing material which is typically
from ferrous shredding and may be comprised of motors without cases including motor armatures, motor stators, motor rotors,
alternators, small transformers and copper coils
The exchange service has been successfully connecting Buyers and Sellers of Copper Scrap on-line since 1995.
Copper/Aluminum Radiator Scrap
If you wish to recycle
Copper/Aluminum Rad Scrap
submit your requirements to the Inter-Continental Metal Exchange.
Scrap Copper/Aluminum Radiators shall consist of unalloyed copper tubing surrounded by aluminum cooling fins
derived from typical heat exchange radiators.
Copper Residues
Copper bearing wastes and
Copper Residues
that are collected from copper melting skimmings and slags, copper ashes and
oxides,
plating sludges and filter cakes are refined on a copper recovery basis.
For each type of industrial metal process that generates metal bearing wastes,
the challenge is to identify a refinery the can recover that particular
Residue
for that metal or combination of metals contained in the residue.
Trader Access Subscription
If you are an aggressive trader (Buyer or Seller) of Scrap Cooper, you may wish to
Subscribe
to the Trader Access service.
This is a real-time service that allows you to receive new listings as they are added into the on-line exchange.
These fresh leads are provided with the contact information and details that allow you to deal
directly and immediately with the lister.
The Inter-Continental
Metal Exchange
is a part of
Cooksmill NetSystems,
this is a unique network of websites and on-line information exchanges that are operated for
the benefit of the subscribing members.
Copper Tracker
The Copper Tracker
tracks the market trends for across the USA for dealer to mill prices of #1 Copper Scrap in truck load quantities.
