Three tests that identify almost anything
The magnet is first and does most of the work. If it sticks, you have ferrous metal — steel or iron. That is the bulk of household metal by weight and the lowest value per kilo. If it does not stick, you are into the metals worth sorting.
Colour identifies the rest. Reddish-brown is copper. Yellow-gold is brass. Dull silver-grey and surprisingly light is aluminium. Heavy, soft, dull grey that marks easily is lead. Stainless steel is bright and either weakly magnetic or not at all.
Where a coating confuses things, scratch an inconspicuous spot with a file. Chrome-plated brass taps look like steel until you scratch them, and plated fittings are a common source of missed value.
- Magnet — sticks means low-value ferrous
- Colour — reddish is copper, yellow is brass
- Weight — aluminium is unexpectedly light
- Scratch test reveals the metal under coatings
- Sound — brass rings, steel thuds
- When unsure, keep it separate
Where the good metal hides
Copper is the prize and it hides in plumbing. Pipe from a rewire or a bathroom refit, the cores of electrical cable, and above all a hot water cylinder — a combi conversion leaves a cylinder that is essentially a large copper vessel.
Brass turns up as taps, valves, stopcocks, door furniture, old light fittings and locks. Old taps in particular are often chrome-plated brass and worth considerably more than they look.
Aluminium is in window and door frames, ladders, engine parts, some cookware and drinks cans. Lead is in old plumbing, flashing off a roof and car batteries. And there is real weight in the ordinary ferrous items — radiators, bed frames, tools, appliance casings, steel shelving.
Sorted it into piles already?
Then you've done the valuable part. We'll collect it and put each stream where it belongs.
Preparation is where the money is
Sorting is worth real money. Mixed metal is bought at close to the lowest-value component's rate, so separating copper from brass from aluminium from steel is the single biggest lever on what you are paid.
Stripping insulation off copper cable roughly doubles its value. For any quantity it is worth doing — a cable stripper is inexpensive and pays for itself on the first decent load. Clean bright copper pays more than tarnished or painted copper.
Remove non-metal parts where you reasonably can: plastic ends off pipe, rubber off cable, timber off brackets. And keep it dry — wet scrap weighs more but yards are not paying you for water, and heavily corroded material is downgraded.
Selling it, legally
It is illegal for a scrap metal dealer in Scotland to pay cash. Payment must be by bank transfer or cheque and your identity must be verified and recorded. This is not optional and it is enforced, so a cash offer is a signal to walk away.
Check the dealer holds a local authority licence and get more than one quote for anything substantial — prices track the commodity markets and can differ between yards on the same day.
For quantity, a collection usually beats a series of car journeys, since weight is the entire cost of moving metal. And anything with a plug is WEEE (anything with a plug or a battery) rather than plain scrap, however metallic — see WEEE disposal and scrap metal collection.
