Since 2019–2021 China admits scrap only as “recycled raw material” meeting national standards. This guide explains what the standards cover, what they exclude, and how the trade has adapted by upgrading material in Malaysia, Thailand and elsewhere.
Since 2019–2021 China admits scrap only as “recycled raw material” meeting national standards. This guide explains what the standards cover, what they exclude, and how the trade has adapted by upgrading material in Malaysia, Thailand and elsewhere.
For two decades China was the world’s largest scrap importer, taking mixed copper, aluminium and steel scrap of every grade. From 2017 it began restricting imports of solid waste, and from 2019 to 2021 it moved to a new position: scrap as such is banned, but “recycled raw material” that meets a national standard is not waste and may be imported freely. The standards are GB/T 39733 for recycled steel raw material, GB/T 38470 for recycled brass, GB/T 38471 for recycled copper and GB/T 38472 for recycled cast and wrought aluminium.
Each standard sets a minimum metal content, limits on impurities and non-metallic matter, and physical requirements (size, cleanliness, absence of attachments), and defines categories within the metal — for example, several categories of recycled steel by shape and source, and separate categories for cast and wrought recycled aluminium.
Clean, single-alloy, well-prepared material passes: bare bright and No. 1 copper, clean brass solids, extrusions and other sorted wrought aluminium, clean stainless in defined categories, and prepared steel scrap of consistent size. Mixed grades fail: Zorba, insulated wire, mixed castings, motors and transformers, radiators, e-waste, dross and anything with significant plastic, rubber, oil or attachments. Chinese customs inspects imported consignments against the standard and returns or penalises non-compliant cargo, and importers must be registered.
The lower grades did not disappear; they moved. Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Japan and South Korea built sorting, granulation and smelting capacity to upgrade mixed scrap into compliant recycled raw material, which is then exported to China. India became the main alternative destination for aluminium and copper scrap. Exporting countries invested in sensor sorting so that their own output meets the Chinese categories. For a seller today, the question is not whether China buys scrap but whether a particular lot meets a particular GB/T category.