Electric Motor Scrap

Mixed motors, alternators and starters priced on the copper inside

Electric motor scrap is bought for the copper winding inside a steel and cast-iron body, and every price conversation starts with how much copper that is. A typical mixed lot recovers roughly 8–15% copper by weight, with iron and steel making up almost all of the rest — laminations, housings, shafts and end bells — plus a small share of aluminium, insulation and dirt. Where a lot sits in that band depends on the mix. Small motors from appliances, power tools and fans carry more plastic and take more labour per kilogram of copper; medium industrial motors are the backbone of most containers; large motors are heavy on steel and slow to cut, but their windings are thick and clean once they are out. Alternators and starters trade alongside motors and are usually bagged separately because their copper share differs from the general mix. The single biggest value split is winding metal: aluminium-wound motors look identical from the outside and recover a fraction of the value, so a lot sold as copper-wound should be spot-cut at the yard, and a mixed lot should state its aluminium-wound share. Shredded motor scrap — the "meatball" fraction a shredder throws out because the copper is still tangled in the steel — trades as its own grade on an assayed copper figure rather than a count of motors.

The buyers sit in hand-dismantling economies. US and European yards cannot strip motors economically, so the grade is exported to melters in Pakistan, India, Türkiye and China, where labour recovers the copper windings and the steel separately — the copper to secondary refiners and rod casters, the steel and cast iron to induction furnaces. The flows are large: India imported 445,948 t of HS 7404 copper scrap in 2025, 24.6% of it from the USA (UN Comtrade, 2025 import declarations, reporter India), and US exporters declared 381,636 t of HS 7204.49 ferrous scrap to Pakistan in 2025 at an average $830/t (UN Comtrade, 2025 export declarations, reporter USA) — about two and a half times the unit value of the same code shipped to Türkiye, a gap consistent with a large share of motor-bearing and other copper-bearing mixes in those boxes (our reading of the data). Classification follows that pattern: Pakistani importers commonly clear motors under PCT 7204.4990 as ferrous scrap, while elsewhere the same material is entered under 7204 or, where it is treated as waste electrical equipment, under 8549 — so the classification is the buyer's customs broker's call, confirmed in writing before a box is booked. On the export side, UK guidance generally treats motors taken out of waste electrical equipment like other WEEE components, meaning prior notification and consent rather than green-list paperwork; industrial motors are less clear-cut, and the exporter's position with its competent authority belongs on file. Loads run at about 20–24 MT per 40ft container, lower where road-weight limits at origin cap the box. Freight is container freight quoted through lines and forwarders; US East Coast to Karachi runs roughly 45–60 days via the Cape. Pakistani buy offers typically specify LC at sight, and in our reading CAD is used between established yards and their regular buyers. Each lot carries a radiation-free certificate, an oil-free statement and photographs of a sample cut.

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Excluded origins are not offered, including product re-exported, blended or re-processed through a third country. Every lot moves with a certificate of origin naming the producing plant, mine or grower country, and nothing is quoted before the seller and loading point are known.