Aluminium Scrap Grades: Why Extrusion Beats Cans, and Cast Beats Turnings

Aluminium has one of the widest price spreads between grades of any common scrap metal at Shershah, and unlike copper, the visual differences between grades are often obvious once you know what to look for.

Extrusion (window frames, door frames, ladder stock)

Clean aluminium extrusion, the kind used in window and door frames, ladders, and structural profiles, is close to pure aluminium and machines easily, so it commands the top price among common aluminium scrap. It's usually recognisable by its shape: long straight lengths with a consistent cross-section, often still showing the manufacturer's anodised finish or paint.

Cast aluminium (engine blocks, wheel rims, pot and pan bodies)

Cast aluminium parts, old engine blocks, alloy wheel rims, cookware, contain more silicon and other alloying elements than extrusion does, which lowers the price a bit but still keeps it well above the bottom grades. Wheel rims specifically are a steady seller at Shershah because of how many are scrapped from the used-tyre and used-parts trade that runs alongside the metal trade here.

Sheet and clad aluminium (roofing sheet, cladding, cans)

Thin aluminium sheet, roofing material, cladding panels, and drink cans sit lower again. Cans in particular are thin, lightweight, and often coated in paint or lacquer that has to be burned or processed off before the metal is usable, and that processing cost gets subtracted from what you're offered. A kilo of cans looks like a lot of material but weighs far less than the same volume of cast or extrusion, which surprises first-time sellers who expect a bag of cans to be worth more than it turns out to be.

Turnings and swarf (machine shop waste)

Aluminium turnings, the curled shavings left over from lathe and milling work, are the lowest-priced common grade. They're often contaminated with cutting oil, mixed with small amounts of steel from the cutting tool, and their high surface area means more of the metal oxidises before it ever reaches a buyer. If you run a small machine shop and generate this regularly, keeping turnings dry and separated from steel swarf is the single biggest thing you can do to protect the price.

A rough way to sort before you go

If you're bringing a mixed load, split it into four rough piles at home: straight-profile extrusion, cast/wheel parts, sheet and cans, and turnings or shavings. You don't need to be precise about it. Even an approximate sort gets you a blended quote closer to the real value of each pile instead of one average number applied to everything, which is what happens by default when a buyer has to sort it themselves under time pressure.