What You Need To Know About Recycling Copper Or Aluminum

9 January 2023
 Categories: , Blog

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Metal recycling has a significant impact on the number of raw materials consumed in the production of new materials. Some metals are reusable many times over and are more valuable as a result. Nonferrous metals like copper sold through copper recycling services can bring a fair price and be recycled many times while maintaining their properties.

Raw Metal

When recycling a nonferrous metal, the material must be pure and not mixed with contaminants or other metals. Copper that is pure metal is worth much more to the copper recycling services than when mixed with other metals that they have to separate before refining.

If the copper was used as plumbing pipe, there is a potential that solder held the joints together. Those connecting points are still valuable to the recycler, but not nearly as much as the pipe with no solder on it.

The recycling service will price the copper, and the mixed materials will be priced lower. If the raw copper is in the same batch when selling it, most recyclers will pay a lower price, so it is often better to sort the materials before they go to the copper recycling services for sale.

Commercial Recycling

Large companies that work with copper and have some scrap that is part of their process will often recycle it in bulk. These companies also work with copper recycling services to sell the scrap, but they may wait until the price is high and they have a large amount to sell. 

The price they sell the copper scrap for can offset the cost of production, so for businesses, recycling copper can be profitable. However, the cost of transporting the material to the recycling center and the time to collect and store the copper can reduce the profit. Holding large amounts of scrap until the price is high can benefit these businesses, but it can also help raise the price for individuals selling scrap copper on the side. 

Recycling Benefits

Recycling copper and other materials has a positive impact on the environment and the raw materials available, but it also creates jobs and injects money into the economy. Every time you sell scrap to local copper recycling services, money changes hands, and people must process the scrap metal before selling it to refineries. 

The refineries then use that metal to make more copper, which requires workers and factories. Copper products are then sold to people who need them, which produces more economic value and jobs.

Copper recycling services are part of a production cycle that allows the use and reuse of copper all over the world and benefits everyone from the small scrap collector to the end user buying copper pipe or products.

For more information about copper recycling services, contact a local business.