When you want some extra cash, scrap metal can be a great way to put some money in your pocket. The most valuable and plentiful metal materials that you can collect are copper and brass. Before you start recycling copper, though, there are a few things that you should know. The following copper recycling information will help you get cash for your scrap:
Getting metal down to raw materials
There are different types of materials that contain copper. Sometimes, these materials contain garbage, such as plastics and insulators. Before you get ready to recycle your metal, you want to strip everything down to the bare metal. To break materials down to the raw metal to be recycled, you should remove fittings from pipe materials, strip insulators for wires, and remove casings from electric motors. Removing insulated covers and other waste materials will ensure you get the full value of materials when you recycle metal.
Identifying the purity of copper materials
The purity of the metal that you are recycling is another factor you will want to consider. There are some tricks to tell how much copper is in the copper materials that you collect. The purer the materials are, the most valuable they are going to be. Some ways to tell the purity of copper materials include the following:
- Use a spectrometer to test materials
- Look for darker materials, which usually have more copper
- Determine the purity by the original use and manufacturing specifications
When you are recycling copper materials, you are going to want to set the purer materials to the side to get more money for your efforts.
Separating brass by the copper content
You may not be familiar with the fact that brass contains copper—the amount of copper in a brass object will determine its value. Therefore, you will also want to separate the brass materials according to the purity and amount of copper that the materials contain. Here are some things to look for to help you determine the content of brass:
- Look for signs of flaking plating, which often means it's less pure
- Lighter yellow-colored metals contain less copper
- Darker reddish and golden colors contain more valuable metal
When you are recycling the brass materials, the reddish and darker materials will be a lot more valuable than other objects. This is because they contain more valuable copper that can be recycled.
You want to know about the recycling materials before taking copper and scrap metal in to be recycled. Call copper buyers to get the extra cash for the scraps that you have collected.
