Scrap metal recyclers are always trying to get their hands on as much material as possible. One additional revenue stream is prompt scrap. Where and how to obtain it, however, isn’t as simple as consumers dumping scrap at your doorstep. Let’s explore what this value material is and how you can get it.
What Is Prompt Scrap?
Scrap steel comes in three phases. The first is what we call home scrap—leftover pieces of metal from the production of raw materials at a steel mill. Not everything a mill produces is fit for fabrication down the road. Some pieces fail quality-control protocols, while trimmings from sheet metal might be too small or too irregular to sell, even though their properties bear the same integrity as what the mill sells. Home scrap is easy to recycle, and, as its name would indicate, mills often recycle it in house.
Skipping ahead to the third phase, we find obsolete scrap. This is scrap steel from disused postconsumer products—such as scrapped cars and tin cans—that has reached the end of its useful life. In the middle of these phases is our concern: prompt scrap, the byproducts of metal fabrication that, like home scrap, is too irregular for use. However, fabricators don’t have the facilities on the premises to put it back into circulation themselves. That’s where recyclers come in.
Why Do We Want It?
Let’s be clear: all recyclable scrap is a welcome contribution to limiting our need for virgin raw materials. However, plentiful as obsolete scrap may be, getting it back into the system takes additional work. The processing that obsolete scrap requires can be extensive in some cases, sometimes even including checking for radioactivity. Prompt scrap differs from obsolete scrap in that we know exactly what we have on our hands—namely, steel fit for fresh use.
Where Do We Get It?
Most often, you’ll want to go straight to the source to grab prompt scrap. Not wanting to let prompt scrap go to waste, manufacturers will sell to recyclers who will take this waste off their hands and allow them to concentrate on their core competencies. Unfortunately, it’s seldom as simple as just showing up, rolling down the window, and asking what they have.
How Do We Get In on That?
Because of the value of prompt scrap, where and how to obtain it can be some rarefied air indeed. The scrap metal business is very much a relationship business, and scrappers leverage those relationships with manufacturers to get their hands on the good stuff. Scrap yards contract with manufacturers to pick up prompt scrap for processing. You may have to cut a private deal to do the same. Another option is to buy at auction. Manufacturers will often put up their scrap for bids rather than make inside deals, where it’s going once, going twice, going to be recycled time after time.
