Copper scrap Price per kg

What copper scrap is and where it comes from

Copper scrap is scrap metal whose value is in the copper content: wire, pipe, sheet metal, rail, winding, cable. The fact that copper becomes dark or green over time is not a deficiency — the oxide layer just sits on top. Something else decides on the proceeds: how pure the scrap metal is and what is still attached to it. The copper scrap price per grade is shown in the table above, with the status of the day.

Electrical installation, plumbing and heating

Most of the copper scrap in Germany comes from buildings. Installation lines and supply lines are used in an electrical renovation, and pipes are mainly used for sanitary and heating: drinking water lines, heating strands, copper pipe from underfloor heating. Pipes are clean scrap metal, as long as no soldering points, brass fittings or steel tube clamps sit on them.

Decommissioning, disassembly and industry

The dismantling and disassembly of systems are used for assembly rails, copper sheets, power rails from switchgear and thick grounding lines. This is often the best copper ever, because it is massive and varietal. Fittings, insulators and bolted-on steel angles are pre-emptive.

Electronics, cables, roof and motors

In addition, there are cable residues of all cross-sections, transformers and electric motors with copper winding, coolers made of copper and brass as well as roof cover, drop pipes and rain channels made of copper sheet. For engines, transformers and whole dismantlings it is worth a SupplyBecause the copper content cannot be read from outside.

Copper price scrap: why there is no number

A current price for copper scrap cannot be said in a single number. A current copper price for scrap is attached to the grade: If you want to sell copper scrap at the moment, you should first know what it has – the price table above indicates your own stand for each grade.

Those looking for the copper scrap price, the copper scrap price currently or the scrap price for copper currently expect a number. There is no such thing — at least not one. There's a copper price for scrap Per gradeand between the best and the weakest copper grades are worlds. A bare wire and a plug cable are both copper scrap, but achieve very different kiloprices.

Therefore, the structure of the price table above is more important than any single number: First search for your grade, then read the current state. Those who call the kilo price for copper scrap without the grade guess.

The copper grades and what distinguishes them

• Millberry copper — bare, unalloyed wire without insulation and without start-up paint. The top quality.
• Cu-Berry 98 — clean copper with slight inrun marks, tube and sheet without foreign materials.
• Refining-grade copper — mixed, contaminated copper: tinned, lacquered, with soldering rods.
• Cu heavy, base 95 percent copper content — heavy parts with attachments, calculated by copper content.
• Copper cable approx. 70 percent and Copper cable approx. 60 percent — cables with a high conductor content.
• Cu cable mixed, 38 to 40 percent Cu — the typical cable mix from the electro-refurbishment.
• Cu plug cable, approx. 30 percent Cu — Electrical and power cables with plug: thin conductors, lots of plastic.
• Cu-Ms cooler without iron — Copper and brass radiator nets, free of steel parts.

All grades with the current copper prices for scrap are bundled under Copper and in the full list at Metal prices. If you do not want to classify your scrap metal, but want to follow the listing itself, Copper price the right side — it is about the price of the day and its movement, here about your scrap metal and its sorting.

Copper cable scrapping prices: the conductor counts, not the cable

In the case of cables, the weight on the scales is not paid, but the copper in it. A finger-dick earth cable can be heavier than a bundle of installation cables and still bring less because under the thick insulation there is a comparatively thin conductor. This is precisely why the cable types are staggered by copper content, and that is exactly why the question of copper cable scrap prices can only be answered with a glance at the cable.

When Stripping Counts

With thick individual wires and with earth cables with large cross-sections it is almost always worth it: The conductor is quickly free, and from a medium cable type becomes clean wire. With thin installation lines and even more so with plug cables, it is rarely worth it — the working time per kilogram is in no proportion to the surcharge. Rule of thumb: the thicker the ladder, the more likely it is to cut.

What you shouldn't do is burn down cable. Burned conductors are devalued, not upgraded, and it is not allowed anyway. More information in the guide Buying copper and copper cables.

Sorting is the biggest lever

An unseparated delivery is evaluated according to its weakest component. This is not a harassment, but a calculation: we have to take the mixture apart ourselves, and what cannot be safely assigned goes to the lower grade. If you sort an hour, you often move several hundred kilograms to the next higher classification.

The magnetic test

Iron is the most common devaluation ground: screws, tube clamps, steel angles, metal boxes on switchgear, shafts in motors. A simple magnet does the test in seconds — it adheres to steel, not copper. What the magnet holds belongs in its own container and runs as iron scrap. How this happens with mixed deliveries, is stated in the guide Metal scrap purchase.

Plastics, soldering, varnish and oxide

Insulation, adhesive tape and cable ties move the ratio of weight to copper. Soldering tin at tube ends and tinned wires lead into the Raff grade. Coated wire of windings does not count as bare wire. Oxide layers, on the other hand, are uncritical: tapered copper remains copper, dark pipes do not have to be cleaned.

What is not a copper scrap

Brass and gunmetal are copper-containing, but own alloys with their own prices — fittings, fittings, faucets, valves, bearing bushings. They do not belong in the copper containers, but to Brass. They are recognizable by the yellowish to reddish-yellow colour; copper is clearly red.

Also not included are aluminium copper composite cables, in which an aluminium conductor carries only one copper coat. They run as Aluminium copper cable. If you mix them under the copper, you pull down the entire shipment.

Copper scrap Price current: where the daily stand stands

The copper scrap price is currently shown in the table above, separated by grade, and is tracked every working day. A copper scrap current price without indication of the grade says little: Between blank wire and plug cable lies more than between two trading days.

Those who compare current scrap prices for copper are best comparing grades against grades. Current prices for copper scrap from a list last week are not a standard for today, and a scrap price of copper currently from the news usually means the stock listing for pure cathode copper — not what goes on our scales. You will therefore always find current copper scrap prices here and not in a message from yesterday.

Kiloprice copper scrap: what pulls it up and down

The copper scrap kilo price follows the copper percentage. Top it pulls varietal purity, bare surfaces and thick cross-sections. Lower it pulls iron parts, soldering tin, insulation and moisture because they have to go with the weighing and later be separated.

Copper prices Scrap and copper price Scrap currently mean the same thing: the level per grade on the day of weighing. Copper scrap prices are currently worth comparing only for the same grade — current scrap prices for copper from two different classifications are two different figures. The classification is done yourself.

Three ways to sell your copper scrap

Sending to Germany

Smaller and medium quantities are sent by DHL parcel shipping, up to 1,000 kg. You choose the grade, specify the quantity, receive the shipping label and submit the package. For copper, this is calculated earlier than for other metals because the kilo price is high and the volume is small.

Collection from 500 kg

From 500 kg we pick up Germany-wide with our own fleet. The collection costs are staggered after distance and are fixed before the journey. This limit is quickly reached when dismantling, disassembly and cable drums from the electro-gross trade.

Delivery to Ludwigshafen

Directly to our recycling yard: Industriestraße 4, 67063 Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Monday to Saturday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., without appointment. They drive on the calibrated scales, we look through the goods together and determine the grade. Further delivery points will follow. What you should bring is under Delivery.

Weighing and disbursement

Weighing on a calibrated scale, the weighing slip is yours. Payment is made within 24 hours, cash or by bank transfer. In the event of major disbursements, the Money Laundering Act requires an ID card. If you deliver commercially, the tax liability of the recipient shall apply in accordance with § 13b UStG — will then be charged without VAT.

We buy from private and commercial, as a family business with over ten years of experience and our own recyclable farm. The person who regularly delivers copper scrap gets a fixed contact person and a classification that remains comprehensible — at the farm, at the collection and at the dispatch.