41 hand-picked videos to understand the world scrap trade — how metal is recycled and melted, scrap yards and shredders, ship recycling, grades, prices and trade. Every video has a short note in our own words. Tap any picture to play it on the big TV.
Metals can be melted and reused again and again without losing their properties, which is why scrap is traded around the world.
A short explainer from the US metal recycling industry: collection, sorting, shredding, melting and selling the metal back to mills.
An American recycler walks through each step from the truck scale to the finished bale or shred.
A long WELT documentary from Germany on how waste, including metal scrap, becomes raw material for industry.
Business Insider looks at why steel is the most recycled material and why melting it still needs a lot of energy.
Most steel scrap is melted in electric arc furnaces and induction furnaces to make new steel.
An engineering explainer on how graphite electrodes melt a charge of scrap with an electric arc.
A shorter lesson on the arc furnace and why it suits scrap-based steelmaking.
Nucor, the largest steelmaker in the United States, runs its mills on electric arc furnaces fed mostly with scrap. This is its own film of the process.
A shorter Nucor film following scrap from the yard to finished bar.
Induction furnaces melt scrap using a magnetic field instead of an arc. Many smaller mills in India, Turkey and elsewhere use them.
A factory film showing steel scrap being melted, cast and rolled into reinforcing bar.
Non-ferrous scrap is worth far more per tonne than steel scrap and is traded closely against exchange prices.
Hydro, the Norwegian aluminium company, explains recycling: remelting uses only a small part of the energy needed to make new aluminium.
A Discovery film following used drinks cans back to new sheet.
Business Insider on the cans that are never recycled in the United States and what that metal is worth.
A machinery maker shows how the paint and lacquer are removed from shredded cans before they are melted.
An explainer on the size of the copper scrap trade and why copper is so valuable to recycle.
Insulated cable is chopped and separated into clean copper granules and plastic. A machinery maker's demonstration.
A short guide to telling the main copper scrap grades apart.
The Battery Council International shows how used lead-acid batteries are broken, separated and the lead refined for new batteries.
The modern scrap yard collects, sorts, shears, bales and shreds metal before it goes to the mill.
A long film from California following end-of-life cars through dismantling and shredding.
A documentary on a giant metal shredder that tears cars and appliances into fist-sized pieces.
Cozzi Recycling shows its yard and how material moves through it.
Drone footage of a Sims Metal shredding yard, shared by the New Zealand metal recyclers association. Sims is one of the world's largest metal recyclers.
A short film on a large metal recycling site in Europe and how scrap is handled at scale.
An animation of the magnet rotor that throws aluminium and copper pieces off a conveyor and away from the rest.
Old ships are a large source of steel scrap. Most are broken up in Alang (India), Chittagong (Bangladesh), Gadani (Pakistan) and Aliaga (Turkey).
A Megaprojects film on the ship-breaking beach at Alang in Gujarat.
A DW documentary from the ship-breaking yards of Chittagong.
National Geographic on the work and the risks on the ship-breaking beaches.
Business Insider on why most old ships end up on South Asian beaches.
TRT World visits the Aliaga ship recycling yards near Izmir.
A short explainer on why so many cruise ships are recycled at Aliaga.
Scrap moves between countries in shiploads and containers, priced against grades and exchange references.
Scrap yard owners explain how they buy, sort and sell metal and where the margins come from.
A long interview on how international scrap trading works: contracts, shipping, inspection and risk.
A former metals trader explains physical metal trading and how traders use exchange prices.
A practical guide to how yards grade steel scrap and why preparation changes the price.
How aluminium scrap is separated into sheet, extrusion, cast and mixed grades.
A short explainer on how the LME sets the reference prices used across the non-ferrous scrap trade.
A CGTN report from 2018 on how China's 25 per cent duty on US aluminium scrap hit American recyclers.
Old electronics hold copper, gold, silver and palladium, recovered by specialised recyclers.
Business Insider visits a large electronics recycling plant.
Business Insider on how recyclers recover gold from circuit boards.
The UK's Royal Mint shows its process for recovering gold from electronic waste.
A Reuters report on new chemical methods for recovering metals from e-waste.