Reference

Scrap metal glossary

51 terms the trade actually uses, defined plainly. Where a term varies by jurisdiction, the definition says so rather than picking one and stating it as universal.

Weighing

Gross weight: Gross weight is the total weight of a vehicle and its load as it sits on the weighbridge. It is the first of the two readings a scale ticket needs; net weight is gross minus tare.
Tare weight: Tare weight is the weight of the empty vehicle, recorded after unloading or taken from a stored figure for that vehicle. Using a stored tare is faster but risks error if the vehicle carries tools or fuel that vary between visits.
Net weight: Net weight is gross weight minus tare weight: the actual weight of material delivered. It is the figure a payment is calculated from, before any deduction.
Payable weight: Payable weight is net weight after deductions have been applied. A load with 8,000 kg net and a 2% moisture deduction has 7,840 kg payable weight, and that is what the price per unit is multiplied by.
Weighbridgealso: Truck scale: A weighbridge is a large platform scale, set into or on the ground, used to weigh vehicles before and after unloading. It is also called a truck scale, and in most jurisdictions it must be certified for trade use.
Weight indicator: A weight indicator is the display unit that reads the load cells on a weighbridge and shows the weight. Whether a yard can capture weights automatically depends on the indicator having a data port, not on the weighbridge itself.
Legal for trade: Legal for trade means a scale has been certified by the relevant weights and measures authority for use in commercial transactions. Buying material on an uncertified scale is an offence in most jurisdictions, regardless of how accurate the scale actually is.
Split weighing: Split weighing is weighing a load in parts when the vehicle is longer than the weighbridge. It introduces error and is disallowed for trade use in several jurisdictions, so a yard relying on it should check local rules.

Materials

Ferrous: Ferrous scrap is scrap containing iron, and therefore magnetic. It covers steel, cast iron and most structural and automotive scrap, and trades at far lower prices per tonne than non-ferrous metals.
Non-ferrous: Non-ferrous scrap is scrap containing no significant iron: copper, aluminium, brass, lead, zinc, stainless and precious metals. It is worth many times more per tonne than ferrous, which is why grading accuracy matters most here.
Black mass: Black mass is the powder recovered from shredded lithium-ion batteries, containing lithium, cobalt, nickel and manganese. It is classified as hazardous waste in most jurisdictions, so cross-border movement is controlled under the Basel Convention.
Catalytic converter: A catalytic converter is a vehicle exhaust component containing platinum, palladium and rhodium. Its value depends on the specific part number rather than weight, and it is among the most frequently stolen scrap items, so seller identity records matter more here than anywhere else.
E-waste (WEEE): E-waste is discarded electrical and electronic equipment, known as WEEE in the EU and UK. It is regulated separately from ordinary scrap because it contains both recoverable precious metals and hazardous substances, and usually requires a licensed handler.
Prompt scrapalso: New scrap, Industrial scrap: Prompt scrap, also called new or industrial scrap, is offcuts and rejects generated during manufacturing. Its composition is known and consistent, so it grades higher than obsolete scrap collected from end-of-life goods.
Obsolete scrapalso: Old scrap: Obsolete scrap, also called old scrap, is material recovered from products at the end of their life: demolition steel, end-of-life vehicles, appliances. Its composition is unknown until processed, so it carries more contamination risk than prompt scrap.

Grading

ISRI code: An ISRI code is the trade shorthand for a scrap grade, published by the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (now ReMA) in its Scrap Specifications Circular. "Barley" is clean aluminium radiators; "Birch" is a copper and brass mix. Codes are a naming convention for quoting, not a binding specification: the contract governs what is actually deliverable.
HMS (Heavy Melting Steel): HMS is heavy melting steel, graded as HMS 1 (clean, thicker than 6mm, no galvanised or blackened material) and HMS 2 (which permits galvanised and thinner sections). "HMS 1&2" is a blended grade, commonly quoted at an 80:20 or 90:10 ratio that must be stated in the contract.
Shredded scrap: Shredded scrap is ferrous scrap that has been through a shredder and magnetically separated, producing a dense, uniform fist-sized product. It commands a premium over HMS because mills can charge it with predictable yield.
Turnings: Turnings are the swarf and chips produced by machining operations. They carry cutting oil and moisture, so they are discounted heavily and often require a moisture deduction or a spin-dry before sale.
Birch/Cliff: Birch/Cliff is the ISRI designation for a mixed copper and brass scrap grade. Birch and Cliff are separate codes that are almost always traded together, which is why the pair is quoted as one name.
Irony: Irony describes a non-ferrous item that still has steel attached, such as an irony aluminium casting with a steel insert. It is discounted against the clean grade because the buyer must pay to separate it.

Commercial

Scale ticketalso: Weigh ticket, Purchase ticket: A scale ticket is the document recording a single weighing transaction: gross weight, tare weight, net weight, material and grade, any deduction and its reason, price applied, amount paid, payment method and seller identity. In most jurisdictions it is also the statutory purchase record for scrap bought from the public.
Deduction: A deduction is a percentage or fixed weight removed from net weight before payment, to account for moisture, dirt, attached non-target material or off-spec content. A deduction recorded without a stated reason is the single most common cause of supplier disputes.
Contamination: Contamination is any material in a load that is not the graded product being bought. It is handled either by a deduction, by downgrading the load to a lower grade, or by rejection, and the policy should be agreed with the supplier before it happens.
Spread: The spread is the difference between the price a yard pays for material and the price it sells at. In non-ferrous trading the spread is largely determined by grading accuracy, because a load bought as a lower grade and sold as a higher one captures the difference.
LME price: The LME price is the benchmark set by the London Metal Exchange for refined metals such as copper, aluminium and zinc. Scrap trades at a discount to LME, quoted as a percentage or a fixed amount off, so contracts reference LME rather than fixing an absolute price.
Toll processing: Toll processing is paying a third party to process material you continue to own, rather than selling it to them. The processor charges a fee per tonne and returns the output, so the material never leaves your inventory even though it leaves your yard.
Consignment: Consignment is shipping material to a buyer who pays only once it is sold or assayed. The seller keeps ownership and therefore the price risk until settlement, which is common for precious-metal-bearing material where value cannot be established on sight.
Assay: An assay is a laboratory analysis establishing the metal content of a load. It is used where value cannot be judged visually, such as catalytic converters or black mass, and the contract should state who pays for it and whose assay governs in a dispute.

Compliance

Acquisition register: An acquisition register is the statutory record of scrap purchases, listing what was bought, from whom, when and for how much. Most jurisdictions require it to be kept for several years and produced on demand to police or a regulator.
Seller identification: Seller identification is the record of who sold material to a yard, usually a government-issued ID number and often a photograph. It is the primary control against trading in stolen metal and is mandatory in most jurisdictions for purchases from the public.
Hold periodalso: Tag and hold: A hold period is a legally mandated delay between buying material and processing or reselling it, giving police time to identify stolen goods. Lengths vary by jurisdiction and by material, and are commonly longer for high-theft items such as catalytic converters.
Basel Convention: The Basel Convention is the international treaty controlling cross-border movement of hazardous waste. It governs exports of e-waste and battery material including black mass, and requires prior informed consent from the receiving country.
EPR (Extended Producer Responsibility): Extended Producer Responsibility makes the manufacturer of a product financially responsible for its end-of-life recycling. For a recycler it usually means registering, meeting collection targets and filing returns, with the specifics set by national rules.
Chain of custody: Chain of custody is the documented trail showing who held material at each stage from collection to final processing. Enterprise IT asset disposition clients audit it specifically, because it is how they evidence that data-bearing devices were destroyed.
Notional input tax: Notional input tax is a VAT credit a registered buyer may claim on second-hand goods bought from an unregistered seller, calculated on the purchase price. South Africa allows it at the tax fraction of 15/115 and requires a VAT264 declaration to support the claim.
Reverse charge: Reverse charge shifts responsibility for accounting for VAT or GST from the seller to the buyer. Several jurisdictions apply it to scrap metal specifically, as an anti-fraud measure, so a yard must know whether its sales are reverse-charged before invoicing.
E-way bill: An e-way bill is the electronic document required in India for moving goods above a threshold value. It must be generated before the vehicle departs, carries a validity period based on distance, and must be closed or extended if the journey overruns.

Operations

Yard: A yard is the physical site where scrap is received, sorted, processed and shipped. The term also serves as shorthand for the business itself, as in "a three-yard operation".
Lot: A lot is a defined quantity of material tracked as a unit through processing and sale. Lot tracking is what allows a yard to trace an output batch back to the specific inputs that produced it.
Bale: A bale is loose material compressed into a dense block by a baler, making it cheaper to transport and easier to handle. Baling changes the form but not the grade, so inventory should follow the material through the transformation.
Shear: A shear is a hydraulic machine that cuts oversized ferrous scrap into mill-sized pieces. Shearing raises the value of the material by making it chargeable, at the cost of processing time and energy.
Yield: Yield is the proportion of input weight recovered as saleable output after processing. A shredder yield of 92% means 8% of input weight left as residue, and tracking yield per batch is how a yard detects a process drifting out of specification.
Residuealso: Fluff, ASR: Residue is the non-recoverable fraction left after processing, such as shredder fluff or dust. It usually carries a disposal cost rather than a value, so it must be accounted for or apparent yield will be overstated.
Roll-off container: A roll-off is a large open-top container delivered to a customer site and collected when full. Managing roll-offs means tracking which container is where, how long it has been there, and whether the material in it has been paid for.
Gate-in: Gate-in is the moment a vehicle enters the yard and the transaction begins. It is the point at which identity, vehicle and intent should be captured, because collecting them later is materially harder.

Accounting

Weighted average cost (WAC): Weighted average cost values inventory at the average price paid across all units held, recalculated on each purchase. Buying 10 tonnes at $200 and then 10 at $300 gives a WAC of $250 per tonne. Consuming stock does not change WAC; only purchases do.
FIFO: FIFO values inventory on the assumption that the oldest units are sold first. It tracks cost more precisely than weighted average during rapid price movement, at the cost of significantly more record-keeping per lot.
Opening balance: An opening balance is stock recorded as already held when a system goes live, rather than arriving through a purchase. It should be flagged as such, because it has no scale ticket behind it and will otherwise distort purchase reporting for the first period.
Gross margin: Gross margin is revenue minus the cost of the material sold, expressed as a percentage of revenue. In scrap it is frequently overstated because freight, processing loss and payment terms are excluded from cost of goods when they should not be.
AR and AP: AR is accounts receivable, money owed to the yard by customers; AP is accounts payable, money the yard owes suppliers. A scrap yard is unusual in that AP is often settled instantly in cash at the weighbridge while AR runs on terms, which is what creates the working-capital squeeze.

Missing a term, or think one of these is wrong? Tell us and we will correct it. See also the ISRI code reference and the Ticket-First Principle.

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