A Beginner's Guide To Copper Recycling
Copper is a soft, malleable metal used to make most essential products, including electronics such as computers, televisions, and cell phones. Appliances like washing machines, refrigerators, and dishwashers also rely heavily on copper wiring. Besides, most of the jewelry, architecture, monuments, and alloys you may encounter today are likely to have components made from copper metal. This metal is vital and shouldn't be wasted or misused. Fortunately, recycling copper is possible and critical for achieving that end. Read till the end to learn more.
What is Copper Recycling?
Copper recycling mostly involves materials collected from products that have reached the end of their life cycle, including electric hardware, cables, and wires. Experts recycle copper by melting it down, casting the material into anodes, and electroplating it. So far, copper ranks among the most commonly recycled metals. According to statistics, 35% of the 25 million tons of copper used globally from 2006 to 2015 came from recycling plants.
Scrap Copper Grades for Recycling
The scrap copper grades that recycling companies handle today include:
1. Bare bright copper
Bare bright copper is fundamentally bare, clean, uncoated, and unalloyed. This copper grade is the most valuable in the copper recycling industry. You can get it by stripping off outer coatings from copper cables and wires. Moreover, bare bright copper should be unburnt, unalloyed, and free of contaminations and attachments. If you have this type of copper in your possession, selling it to a recycling company should bring in a significant amount of money. Recycled bare bright copper is reused in computers, motors, and industrial machinery, among other applications.
2. #1 Scrap copper
#1 scrap copper is less valuable than bare bright copper but costs more than all the other grades. For scrap copper to fall in this category, it should comprise clipping, commutator segments, wire, and bus bars. Other requirements include no alloys or coatings and a clean appearance. One of the items that may qualify as #1 scrap copper is copper tubing, the most valuable copper pipe. But, for that to happen, it must be free of solder, paint, fittings, insulation, and other materials. Plus, recycling companies only accept #1 scrap copper with minimal signs of corrosion and trace amounts of oxidation.
3. #2 Scrap copper
#2 scrap copper is somewhat dirtier than #1 and contains miscellaneous, unalloyed solid metal, wire, or pipe. Unlike #1 scrap copper, this grade allows paint, various kinds of coating, and solder. Therefore, in a nutshell, #2 scrap copper includes coated or oxidized, clean copper bus bars, clippings, commutator segments, and punchings. Scrap dealers consider this scrap copper grade the third most valuable.
For more information on copper recycling, contact a professional near you.