If you’ve never sold scrap before, walking into a yard and hearing someone talk about “ferrous” and “non-ferrous” can feel like they’re speaking another language. It’s really not that complicated, though. Once you understand the basic split, a lot of things click into place — including why the bloke next to you just got paid ten times more per kilo than you did.
The Iron Question
Ferrous just means iron. The word comes from ferrum, which is Latin for iron, and that’s genuinely the whole story. If a metal contains iron as a main ingredient, it’s ferrous. Carbon steel, cast iron, wrought iron, stainless steel, HMS — they all fall into this family.
Now, non-ferrous is everything else. Copper, aluminium, brass, lead, nickel — none of these contains significant iron, which is a big part of why they’re worth considerably more.
The Quickest Way to Tell Them Apart
Grab a fridge magnet. Doesn’t need to be fancy — the ones that come free from pizza places work perfectly fine.
If the metal sticks to it firmly, you’re almost certainly dealing with steel or iron. If it doesn’t stick at all, you’ve got something non-ferrous — copper, aluminium, brass, or lead.
There’s one thing that trips people up, though: some stainless steel grades (304 and 316 in particular) are either non-magnetic or only weakly magnetic, despite containing iron. Don’t let that throw you. If a piece looks stainless — bright silver, no rust, stays clean — treat it as stainless and keep it separate from everything else. The price difference over mild steel is enormous, so it matters.
After the magnet, your eyes do most of the remaining work:
- Copper has that distinctive reddish-orange colour. If it’s been sitting outside for a while, it’ll have a green patina — still copper, still valuable.
- Brass looks yellow-gold. It’s heavier than aluminium and has a warmer colour than steel.
- Aluminium is pale grey and genuinely light. If you pick something up and it’s lighter than you expected, aluminium is the likely answer. It doesn’t rust either — it oxidises to a chalky white powder instead.
- Lead is dark grey, very soft (you can scratch it with a key), and ridiculously heavy for its size. Old plumbing pipes and roofing flashings are common sources.
- Stainless is bright and silver, stays clean without rusting, and may or may not react to a magnet.
- Mild steel is heavier and duller than stainless, and it will rust — that familiar orange-brown surface is the giveaway.
What Each Category Actually Pays
This is where the ferrous vs non-ferrous metals split becomes very real, very quickly.
At Johnny Metal Recycling (JMR) in Braeside, here’s where rates currently sit:
- Copper (bright/clean): up to $11.80/kg
- Heavy copper: up to $11.20/kg
- Brass: around $7.20/kg
- Stainless steel: $3.20–$4.10/kg
- Aluminium: $1.80–$2.80/kg
- HMS steel: $0.30–$0.42/kg
That gap between copper and steel — roughly 40 times the price per kilo — isn’t arbitrary. Copper is harder to mine, requires more energy to process from raw ore, and has physical properties that steel simply can’t match. It conducts electricity exceptionally well, resists corrosion without any treatment, and sits at the centre of electrical systems, plumbing, and infrastructure. Demand is consistent and global.
Steel is abundant, cheaper to process, and frankly easier to replace. The value there comes from tonnage, not rate per kilo.
Stainless Steel Deserves Its Own Mention
Stainless is technically an iron alloy, which puts it in the ferrous camp by definition. But scrap buyers don’t price it that way, and for good reason — stainless contains chromium and usually nickel, both of which add real market value. At JMR, stainless gets $3.20–$4.10/kg compared to $0.30–$0.42/kg for HMS. That’s not a small difference.
The single most expensive sorting mistake we see people make is letting stainless end up in the general steel pile. Two minutes of sorting can make a substantial difference to what you walk away with.
The Errors That Quietly Cost People Money
Beyond the stainless/steel mix-up, a few other things come up regularly:
Selling copper wire with the insulation still on. Insulated wire grades lower than bare copper — sometimes significantly. Strip it, and you move into bright/clean pricing at up to $11.80/kg. The time it takes to strip a roll of wire can be well worth it.
Mixing brass and aluminium together. Both are non-ferrous, both won’t stick to a magnet, and both look somewhat similar to an untrained eye. But brass at $7.20/kg and aluminium at $1.80/kg are not in the same ballpark — keep them separate.
Throwing electric motors in with general steel. Motors have copper windings inside a steel housing. If you sell it as steel, you’re getting steel prices on something that contains copper. JMR buys motors as their own category — tell the team what you’ve got.
Before You Drive Over
A few labelled buckets or old fertiliser bags go a long way. Keep copper in one, brass in another, aluminium in its own pile, and stainless separate from the steel. Use your magnet as the first sort on anything you’re unsure about.
If you genuinely can’t identify something, just ring 0449 894 456 and describe it. The team at JMR will tell you what it likely is and how it’ll be graded before you make the trip.
For loads of 500 kg or more, free mobile collection is available across Melbourne — JMR comes to you. Everything else, drop at 1/9 Breaside Drive, Braeside VIC 3195. Payment is the same day, on the spot.
Email: johnnymetalrecycling@gmail.com Website: jmrecycling.com.au
