Brass Scrap

Honey yellow brass, Ebony red brass and Ocean radiators

Brass is a copper alloy, and it is bought as one. Honey — yellow brass solids — runs roughly 60–63% copper with the balance mostly zinc, and covers the everyday stream of fittings, valves, locks, handles, sheet and rod. Ebony is red brass, the 85-5-5-5 composition family at around 85% copper, worth substantially more per tonne for exactly that reason and worth segregating at the yard rather than letting it disappear into a yellow bale. Ocean covers mixed brass radiators, which are really a copper-and-brass composite and price on the declared split between the two. Below the solids sit brass turnings and borings, which carry cutting oil and fines and discount accordingly, and brass shells, which are clean and consistent but must be certified fired, inert and free of primers and propellant before anyone will load them. Because value tracks contained copper, the working rule is simple: segregate by copper content, because a mixed bale prices to the lowest plausible content in it.

Two specification points do more damage than they should when they are left out of the contract. The first is lead. Free-machining brasses such as CuZn39Pb3 carry up to about 3.5% lead by design, and buyers supplying drinking-water fittings — or working to EU or US low-lead plumbing rules — need the lead content declared and held, not discovered on assay. The second is iron and non-metallic attachment: steel screws, springs, plastic handles, rubber seals and chrome plating all reduce payable metal, and chrome-plated brass in particular is often mistaken for yellow solids. We XRF at purchase and again at loading, contract an attachment ceiling, and price against the LME copper cash settlement applied to the contained copper, less a refining allowance that varies by grade and preparation. Sourcing runs through plumbing and valve manufacturers, machine shops, demolition, radiator and HVAC dismantling and general yards across the Gulf, Europe, the UK and North America, with radiation certification, SGS or Intertek supervision and 22–25 MT per 20ft container on FOB, CFR and CIF terms.