Aluminium Scrap Export: Grades, Specifications, and What Buyers Look For

Aluminium — spelled 'aluminum' in the United States, the same metal either way — is one of the most widely traded recovered metals in the world, because remelting it uses a small fraction of the energy needed to produce it from ore. That demand supports an active export market, and with it a vocabulary of category names that traders lean on. Understanding those categories, and why buyers care more about the specification than the label, is most of what a newcomer needs.

The common category names

As general industry knowledge, aluminium scrap tends to be described in broad families based on where it comes from and how clean it is:

• Extrusions — offcuts and profiles from window frames and similar products; valued when free of thermal-break plastic, rubber gaskets, and steel screws.
• Sheet — clean rolled stock such as trimmings and used sheet, prized when it is a single, known alloy family.
• Wheels — cast aluminium road wheels, which need steel weights, valve stems, and tyre remnants removed to grade well.
• Cast — engine and gearbox castings and similar heavy pieces, typically a different alloy family from wrought sheet or extrusion.
• Mixed / low-grade — commingled aluminium of unknown alloys, and turnings or borings from machining, which carry oil and fines and are priced accordingly.
• Used beverage cans (UBC) — a high-volume, well-defined stream traded largely on cleanliness and moisture.

These are general industry terms, not a catalogue of any one company's stock. They are a shared shorthand — a starting point for a conversation that still has to end in a written specification.

Why specification beats grade name

Aluminium's value to a buyer depends heavily on alloy chemistry, and alloys are easy to mix and hard to separate once melted. 'Extrusions' from two suppliers can behave very differently in a furnace if one batch carries more attachments or a different alloy blend. That is why serious buyers write specifications rather than trust names: they pin down the acceptable alloy family or chemistry range, the maximum non-metallic and free-iron content, coatings such as paint or anodising, moisture, and the physical form. A grade name sets expectations; the specification is what the deal is actually enforced against.

Contamination is the whole game

For aluminium, most quality problems come down to contamination and misdescription. Attached steel — screws, hinges, weights — dilutes the metallic yield and can damage processing. Plastics, rubber, and thermal breaks add weight that isn't metal. Oil and moisture on turnings inflate the shipped weight and create hazards on remelt. Mixed alloys reduce what the recovered metal can be used for. Every one of these is a reason a buyer either discounts the price or rejects the load, and every one is measurable — which is exactly why it belongs in the contract as a number.

Export considerations

On top of the general mechanics of any metal export — consistent documentation, origin inspection, a deliberately chosen Incoterm, and payment terms that match the relationship — aluminium adds a few of its own. Because it is light and bulky relative to its value, packing density and freight economics matter more than for denser metals; baling and how a container is loaded affect the landed cost meaningfully. Turnings and fines may face specific handling or documentation requirements. And because alloy identity drives value, buyers increasingly expect verification at loading rather than taking the description on faith. The exporters who do well are simply the ones whose loads consistently match the spec on the invoice.