Ranked by price per pound, the order is copper, brass, copper radiators, insulated wire, then aluminium, zinc, lead and stainless, with steel far behind at about $0.15 a pound. Ranked by money per hour of work, the order changes completely: a catalytic converter is worth roughly $1,000 an hour of effort, a fridge compressor about $370, and stripping thin cord actually loses money.
Scrap Price Today editorial guide, checked against current exchange settlements, recycler grade specifications and mill buying programs. Figures are examples; today's prices are on the live scrap price board.
Both rankings matter, and most guides only publish the first. Below are the current figures for each, calculated from today's board.
By price per pound
The cleanest way to see the hierarchy is to express every grade as a multiple of ferrous scrap, which is $300 a short ton, or about $0.15 a pound.
| Copper | Brass | Copper radiators | Insulated wire | Aluminium | Stainless | Lead | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Measurement | Price per lb, and multiple of ferrous | Same | Same | Same | Same | Same | Same |
| Today's price | $5.82 | $3.57 | $3.34 | $2.81 | $0.84 | $0.57 | $0.59 |
| Times ferrous | 38.8 | 23.8 | 22.3 | 18.7 | 5.6 | 3.8 | 3.9 |
| Where it hides | Cable, pipe, motors, radiators | Fittings, valves, casings | Older vehicle cooling systems | Building wire, harnesses | Windows, wheels, ladders | Kitchens, food equipment, sinks | Batteries, roofing, weights |
A pound of clean copper is worth almost thirty-nine pounds of steel. That single ratio explains why sorting matters more than anything else you do.
Ferrous grades sit close together: ferrous scrap $300 a short ton, cast iron $288, light iron $264, and complete car bodies $360 because a shredder recovers non-ferrous from them.
By money per hour, which is the ranking that pays
Price per pound tells you what to keep. Value per hour tells you what to do first. These figures use today's prices and realistic recovery times.
- Catalytic converter from a car: about $337 of contained metal, roughly 20 minutes, which is over $1,000 an hour.
- Compressor out of a fridge or freezer: about $62, roughly 10 minutes, near $370 an hour.
- Car battery: about $9, two minutes, which annualises absurdly and is worth doing every time.
- Copper pipe from a bathroom strip-out, joints cut: about $70 for 25 minutes, roughly $168 an hour.
- Four alloy wheels off a vehicle: about $67 for 30 minutes, roughly $134 an hour.
- Dismantling a washing machine with the motor removed: about $45 for 35 minutes, roughly $76 an hour.
- Stripping heavy building wire: about $31 gained on 20 pounds in 40 minutes, roughly $47 an hour.
- Stripping thin cord: a loss. The cable grade pays more than the copper you recover, as our wire stripping analysis shows.
The gap between the top and bottom of that list is the difference between a profitable afternoon and a wasted one, and it is not visible in a price-per-pound table.
The items worth pulling before anything else
- Catalytic converters, subject to the ownership documentation now required in most markets.
- Sealed compressors and electric motors, bought whole by weight with almost no dismantling.
- Copper and brass radiators from older vehicles, graded separately from aluminium ones.
- Lead-acid batteries, quick and always saleable.
- Heavy building cable, where stripping clears the break-even threshold.
- Brass fittings, valves, taps and door hardware from renovation work.
What only looks valuable
- Thin cord, telephone and data cable: mostly plastic by weight.
- Painted and rusted sheet steel: bottom of the ferrous board, worth the trip only in volume.
- Small consumer electronics: real precious metal content, but in quantities no general yard prices properly.
- Tinned and plated copper: genuine copper, graded down as number 2, and easy to mistake for bright.
- Magnetic stainless: 400-series pays a fraction of 304 and 316.
What is happening to these prices right now
The ranking above is stable but the levels are not, and the metals have diverged sharply this year.
Copper is up 52.6 percent over twelve months and sits at the top of its range, brass 49.5 percent behind it. Aluminium is up 32.2 percent over the year but down 14.1 percent over three months. Lead is the only grade lower than a year ago, down 5.8 percent, which is why battery scrap feels disappointing at the moment.
Ferrous rose 11.7 percent over twelve months while finished steel rose 44.8 percent, a gap our steel analysis works through. Collecting decisions made on last year's ranking are being made on old information.
Key numbers
- Clean copper is 38.8 times the price of ferrous scrap per pound today; brass is 23.8 times, aluminium 5.6, stainless 3.8 (Scrap Price Today board).
- Ferrous scrap is $300 a short ton, cast iron $288, light iron $264 and car bodies $360.
- A mid-range catalytic converter holds about $337 of platinum group metal at current levels, the highest value-per-minute item on most vehicles.
- Stripping heavy wire gains about $1.56 a pound; stripping wire below roughly 48 percent copper content loses money.
- Sorting a mixed load typically returns 15 to 25 percent more than selling it at one price (Recycled Materials Association grade definitions).
- Recycled metal supplies roughly a third of world copper demand and close to 30 percent of world steel (World Steel Association and industry data).
How we produced these figures
The per-pound ranking is our current board, derived from exchange settlements using published recovery shares and documented on the editorial policy page. The multiples are those prices divided by the ferrous price per pound.
The value-per-hour figures multiply current grade prices by typical recovered weights and divide by realistic working times. Both the weights and the times vary by item, condition and how practised you are, so treat the ranking as reliable and the individual figures as a starting point for your own arithmetic. The converter figure is contained metal value rather than what a buyer pays.
Live prices are on the board, the calculator converts your own weights, and the preparation guide covers the sorting that determines which of these prices you actually receive.
Questions people ask
What is the most valuable thing on an old car?
The catalytic converter, by a wide margin. A mid-range unit holds roughly $337 of platinum group metal at current prices and takes about twenty minutes to remove, which is the best return per minute on any vehicle. The battery, alloy wheels and radiator follow.
Is it worth taking apart appliances for the metal?
Only partly. Pulling the compressor from a fridge takes about ten minutes and returns roughly $62, which is excellent. Fully dismantling a washing machine returns around $45 for over half an hour, which is closer to ordinary wages. Take the motor and sell the shell as light iron.
Which metal pays the most per pound right now?
Clean copper at $5.82 a pound, which is 38.8 times the price of ferrous scrap. Brass follows at $3.57 and copper radiators at $3.34. Lead is the only grade on our board lower than it was a year ago.
Common mistakes
- Ranking material by price per pound when your real constraint is time.
- Scrapping a car with the converter, battery and wheels still fitted.
- Stripping thin cord, which returns less than the cable grade pays.
- Selling magnetic 400-series stainless expecting the 304 price.
- Collecting rusted sheet steel for money rather than for the space it frees.
Sources and further reading
- Recycled Materials Association: grade specifications and sorting practice
- World Steel Association: recycled content in world steel production
- US Geological Survey minerals information: commodity and recycling data
Related guides
- Copper Scrap Grades Explained: Bare bright, number 1, number 2, insulated wire and mixed copper, and why each pays differently.
- How to Prepare Scrap Metal for Sale: Cleaning, separating and loading scrap so it grades higher at the scale.
- How to Get the Best Scrap Price: Sorting, stripping, weighing and comparing quotes: the steps that raise a payout.
Check today's numbers before you sell: the scrap price board, the price charts, the scrap value calculator and local rates on our scrap prices by country pages.
Frequently asked questions
What is the most valuable thing on an old car?
The catalytic converter, by a wide margin. A mid-range unit holds roughly $337 of platinum group metal at current prices and takes about twenty minutes to remove, which is the best return per minute on any vehicle. The battery, alloy wheels and radiator follow.
Is it worth taking apart appliances for the metal?
Only partly. Pulling the compressor from a fridge takes about ten minutes and returns roughly $62, which is excellent. Fully dismantling a washing machine returns around $45 for over half an hour, which is closer to ordinary wages. Take the motor and sell the shell as light iron.
Which metal pays the most per pound right now?
Clean copper at $5.82 a pound, which is 38.8 times the price of ferrous scrap. Brass follows at $3.57 and copper radiators at $3.34. Lead is the only grade on our board lower than it was a year ago.